Well, just to get things rolling... I've created a little poll to see where everyone stands on the upcoming South Kitsap School District No. 402 Proposition No. 1 School Construction and Facility and Technology Improvements General Obligation Bonds election. You can vote over in the right hand column and hit the "View" button to see how the results stand.
If you chose the last option "Didn't know there was an election", you might want to check out the Kitsap County Election site for some basic info.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Hi - So, whilst on my morning bike ride today, I was thinking about some of the many issues facing my hometown of Manchester (a sub area of Port Orchard) in Kitsap County, Washington. Sprawl, development, NASCAR, Foot Ferries, Views, planning, taxes, Tacoma Narrows bridge, the Marquee, Bremerton redevelopment, etc., etc.. While I try to keep informed and have certain general opinions about many of these things, I realized that there is much that I don't really know in terms of hard facts. The idea of this site popped into my head as a way for me to gather and share info and opinions about the changes going on in my area and, hopefully, to force myself to learn enough about the issues to back up (or possibly change) my opinions.
As I said, I have certain opinions and general leanings but I am trying to go into this with an open mind since that seems to be what is lacking in much of the local debates that I see. I'm not really trying to convince anyone of my opinion, and as I also mentioned, much of my opinions are, as of yet, fairly unformed. For what it is worth, my political leanings in my old age, tend more and more to the left. However, I have come to this position by way of Libertarianism so I am fairly aware of the reasoning behind other opinions that I don't hold.
What I would like to see is a discussion, of real facts and issues. I'm not interested in personal attacks (no matter how much I may agree with them). I am of the hope that if the residents of Kitsap could get a true view of their current situation and from there look at the affects that some to the things in the works may have, it might be possible to actually reach some sort of workable plan for the future. Or maybe not... At any rate, I would like to learn as much as I can.
I think that I am going to try starting with some facts and statistics about the area and work into the issues from there. This may seem fairly basic but it seems to me that it is hard to address issues such as growth without knowing what is here now. I know that in casting about for some info just now, I was looking at some census data on employment and found it a bit surprising (I've not yet figured a good way to condense it for posting here, sorry). As an example, I hear a lot of people, at least here in my South Kitsap end of the woods, talk about preserving our "rural lifestyle". To me, "rural" involves more than just being out in the boonies - things like farms as a for instance and, to be honest, there aren't many! In looking at the census data I found that my impression was at least somewhat correct, there is not much in the way of agriculture, farming, etc.. Lots of Construction, Retail, Military, Real Estate and things like that though. So then the question becomes, can we preserve a lifestyle that we don't actually have?
These are the sorts of questions I'm interested in. I don't pretend to have the answers at this point - do you?
Hope to hear from you.
Kevin King
P.S. I've simulaneously started basically this same site on MySpace as I don't really know which will work out to be a better format / forum. The address there is: http://www.myspace.com/whatkitsap
As I said, I have certain opinions and general leanings but I am trying to go into this with an open mind since that seems to be what is lacking in much of the local debates that I see. I'm not really trying to convince anyone of my opinion, and as I also mentioned, much of my opinions are, as of yet, fairly unformed. For what it is worth, my political leanings in my old age, tend more and more to the left. However, I have come to this position by way of Libertarianism so I am fairly aware of the reasoning behind other opinions that I don't hold.
What I would like to see is a discussion, of real facts and issues. I'm not interested in personal attacks (no matter how much I may agree with them). I am of the hope that if the residents of Kitsap could get a true view of their current situation and from there look at the affects that some to the things in the works may have, it might be possible to actually reach some sort of workable plan for the future. Or maybe not... At any rate, I would like to learn as much as I can.
I think that I am going to try starting with some facts and statistics about the area and work into the issues from there. This may seem fairly basic but it seems to me that it is hard to address issues such as growth without knowing what is here now. I know that in casting about for some info just now, I was looking at some census data on employment and found it a bit surprising (I've not yet figured a good way to condense it for posting here, sorry). As an example, I hear a lot of people, at least here in my South Kitsap end of the woods, talk about preserving our "rural lifestyle". To me, "rural" involves more than just being out in the boonies - things like farms as a for instance and, to be honest, there aren't many! In looking at the census data I found that my impression was at least somewhat correct, there is not much in the way of agriculture, farming, etc.. Lots of Construction, Retail, Military, Real Estate and things like that though. So then the question becomes, can we preserve a lifestyle that we don't actually have?
These are the sorts of questions I'm interested in. I don't pretend to have the answers at this point - do you?
Hope to hear from you.
Kevin King
P.S. I've simulaneously started basically this same site on MySpace as I don't really know which will work out to be a better format / forum. The address there is: http://www.myspace.com/whatkitsap
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