REVIEW BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
Friday, October 24, 2014 | Vol. 114, No. 42 | WWW.BAINBRIDGEREVIEW.COM | 75¢
INSIDE: No easy path, Sports, A12
A FRIENDSHIP BUILT TO LAST
Cecilia Garza | Bainbridge Island Review
Scott Henden, a Republican Party candidate for a seat on the 23rd Legislative District, addresses education in a forum late last week hosted by the League of Women Voters.
Candidates tackle education funding at voters’ forum 23rd District hopefuls square off BY CECILIA GARZA Bainbridge Island Review
Candidates for the 23rd Legislative District in the Washington House of Representatives discussed their take on funding education and doing more to communicate with the public at a forum last week hosted by the League of Women Voters. Running for office are Rep. Sherry Appleton and Scott Henden for Position 1 and Rep. Drew Hansen and James Olsen for Position 2. Appleton and Hansen, incumbents and Democratic Party candidates, and Olsen and Henden, Republican Party candidates, discussed topics from gun control and education to communications and tax exemptions to a crowd of about 40 people at a forum Wednesday, Oct. 14. One of the most telling questions by the audience at the forum addressed education funding: In 2009 and 2010 legislation was passed defining basic education and identifying what should be funded each year. Some aspects of education were required to
be fully funded by 2018. What are your thoughts on how to fully fund basic education by 2018? Hansen: “You can get a couple $100 million out of loophole closures. That’s probably not enough. What I voted for in the past and what we voted for again, is maintaining some of the temporary surcharges that were in place during the recession that rolled off. Beyond that there are other structural steps you can take that have to do with the B&O tax system or the property tax system. Those first two steps get you a long ways towards the McCleary obligation that would have gotten you a billion dollars towards it, if the senate voted for the budget that Sherry and I voted for last year.” Olsen: “Easy, it’s the first part of the pie that’s taken out. It funds education, and after that, all other agencies, and everybody else is going to have to make do, or we’re going to have to come up with some other money. But education gets funded first and the courts said that.” Appleton: “I’m not sure that the courts said that TURN TO FORUM | A11
Photo courtesy of Kim Esterberg
Kim Esterberg is guided through town on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua by its mayors Diego Martinez and Samuel Vialez during his first visit there 25 years ago.
Bainbridge’s sister island association celebrates a quarter century-long friendship BY CECILIA GARZA
Part 1 of 2
Bainbridge Island Review
When the idea of a BainbridgeOmetepe Sister Island Association first sprouted in Kim Esterberg’s head, he found himself stepping into two worlds. In one, he’s on the tarmac of an El Salvador airport on his way to Nicaragua for the first time. Surrounding the plane are soldiers armed with AK-47s. It’s 1986, and Nicaragua is in the throes of its own civil war, otherwise known as the Contra War. In the second, he’s swimming in Lake Nicaragua at twilight off the shore of an isolated Ometepe Island farm with one of the town mayors. Tía Chela is sitting on her porch watching. The fireflies are coming out and the island’s two volcanoes form a silhouette in the backdrop. “I thought, boy, I can hardly wait to tell the story of this island,” Esterberg recalled thinking about that night in the water. He encountered both worlds quick-
Review writer Cecilia Garza looks back at the history of the Bainbridge-Ometepe Sister Island Association in this two-part series. Coming up: Students from the 2014 delegation will share their experiences as part of the 25th group to travel to Ometepe Island. Photo courtesy of Kim Esterberg
Founder of the BainbridgeOmetepe Sister Island Association Kim Esterberg shows photos of Bainbridge Island to Ometepinos during his first trip to Nicaragua in 1986. It would be the start of a sister island connection that has lasted 25 years. ly, but they set the theme for what has become a 25-year-long community friendship. After three years brewing over the idea of a sister island association,
Esterberg visited Nicaragua for the first time with the Seattle-Managua Sister City Association — a campaign aimed at forming friendly intergovernmental connections at a time when U.S. policy was to oust Nicaragua’s Marxist government.
An alternative approach The difference from the sister city association and what Esterberg had in mind, however, was he hoped to bridge Ometepe and Bainbridge in a TURN TO SISTER | A7