Rhodes Less Traveled

The Port of Bremerton burnished its well-deserved reputation as the most tone-deaf public agency in Kitsap County this week by wasting $80,000 of the taxpayers’ money to hire a full-time employee whose main responsibility will apparently be to assure the public its tax money isn’t being wasted.

Commissioner Bill Mahan, whose disconnect with reality appears to grow wider by the day, was the most vocal advocate for hiring a marketing/communications director — at an annual salary of $65,000 plus $15,000 in benefits.

“I feel this position is crucial to the effectiveness of the port and for letting people know what the port is doing,” he said. “I don’t want to tell the public, ‘We wanted to be more transparent, but we didn’t want to put more money toward it.’”

Which prompts two responses.

First, there already exists a vehicle for telling the public what the port is up to. It’s called the media.

Port Orchard Independent reporter Justine Frederiksen attends virtually every Port of Bremerton meeting and her subsequent stories are shared among all five Sound Publishing newspapers in Kitsap County. The Kitsap Sun also routinely covers port commissioner meetings and, like us, finds no end of newsworthy material in their antics.

So what exactly is Mahan’s point? That the stories currently appearing in all of our newspapers are inaccurate simply because they report the news rather than spouting the approved party line?

If so, precisely how does the port’s newly hired, handsomely compensated marketing/communications person plan to change what’s being written?

Do Mahan and Port CEO Cary Bozeman, who also pushed hard for the new position, expect to go over our heads directly to the public via the port’s Web site and that people will take at face value what their flack reports?

Good luck with that.

Even more fundamentally, while I wholeheartedly agree that the port suffers from a serious credibility gap, it isn’t because the public doesn’t know what the commissioners are doing.

It’s because it does.

The voters, as Commissioner Mahan will discover in November should he be brazen enough to seek re-election, are still seething over the board’s decision in 2006 to raise local property taxes in order to fund massive upgrades to the Bremerton Marina.

No, it didn’t help that the decision was deliberately made with little or no public input, but it isn’t as though the voters would have been any happier had the commissioners approved the increase in the light of day.

If the Port of Bremerton wants to rehabilitate its tarnished image with the public, “transparency” is only a small part of the problem. The real issue is substance, not style.

Rather than worrying about whether its expensive, irresponsible decisions were made out in the open or behind closed doors, how about simply not making expensive, irresponsible decisions?

Instead of hiring a shill to rationalize the money they’re wasting, wouldn’t it make a little more sense to simply stop wasting the money in the first place?

The port doesn’t need a full-time employee to tell its story.

What it desperately needs is a better story to tell.

I’ve wondered many times over the years whether Kathryn Simpson and I were speaking the same language, and Wednesday night’s South Kitsap School District meeting offers a case in point as to why.

Debating the question of whether to raise revenue by selling advertising space in the district’s buses, Simpson, who serves as president of the school board, opined that, “I think (advertising is) a bad idea in terms of student safety.”

Safety? Is she worried one of the placards will fall on someone’s head?

Dialing back Simpson’s hyperbole a few notches, I gather what she actually means is that it’s unhealthy for children to be exposed to advertising messages. But I have a number of reactions to that conclusion, none of which could be confused with agreement.

For starters, depending on which study one listens to and how one defines advertising, the average American is exposed to anywhere from 600 to 3,000 advertising messages a day, and youngsters tend to be on the upper end of that scale. I’m not suggesting it’s always a great thing, but at this point it does kind of seem as though that train has left the station.

Either advertising isn’t quite as harmful as Simpson fears or our kids are already too far gone to worry about, but one way or the other I can’t see how a few additional messages on the wall of their school bus will push them over the edge.

That’s particularly true since the district would obviously control who advertised and who didn’t. Just because advertising was allowed doesn’t mean the district would be compelled to festoon its buses with images of Joe Camel or satanic pentagrams.

Maybe it’s just me, but I actually think a billboard from the Washington Milk Council or Colgate Toothpaste would be better for kids than looking at an unadorned yellow bulkhead.

But Simpson wasn’t finished. She also made it known that she would be “very apprehensive about advertising on the inside of our buses from Corporate America.”

Again, huh? In my world, “Corporate America” is a euphemism for the private sector — you know, the folks who voluntarily invest capital to create a good or service the market will hopefully desire enough to trade its hard-earned dollars for. In the process, “Corporate America” generates the wealth and provides the jobs needed to fund the private sector — for example schools.

This is the horror we need to shield our kids from?

I’m not saying the program wouldn’t require a certain amount of oversight or that every conceivable ad would be appropriate for consideration. I’m just saying that in the version of English I speak, being asked to drink Ovaltine doesn’t put anyone’s safety at risk, and “Corporate America” is the place Mommy and Daddy go every morning to earn the paycheck that keeps a roof over our heads.

I agree with just about everything in the Guest Opinion from state Sen. Derek Kilmer and Rep. Larry Seaquist that appears in our Jan. 29 issue.

No reasonable person would disagree with their objection to the state Treasurer’s stated intention to raise Tacoma Narrows Bridge tolls to unrealistic levels.

What I don’t agree with is that only Kilmer and Seaquist’s bylines are on the opinion.

What about Rep. Jan Angel, the third member of the 26th Distrct delegation and, by a strange coincidence, the only Republican (as well as the only Port Orchard resident)?

One assumes Kilmer and Seaquist’s argument would have carried more weight if it had come with the unanimous and bipartisan endorsement of all three members of the delegation.

And Angel would have signed it, too, had she been asked. But according to her, Seaquist and Kilmer never bothered to show it to her.

In fact, when I contacted her office on Monday just an hour after receiving the op-ed from her colleagues, Angel said she hadn’t even heard about it.
“I see what’s going on,” she said. “My Democratic opponent is trying to build the case that Derek and Larry are representing the district but I’m not. I share their concerns, and we’ve all talked to the treasurer together. But leaving my name off the letter is just their way of making it look like I’m not engaged with this issue.”

Kilmer and Seaquist, of course, were under no obligation to include Angel. But again, the letter would have commanded more credibility if they had.

All of which does sort of beg the question of which is more important to them — actually thwarting a toll hike or creating the misleading impression that they care about the tollpayers and Angel doesn’t?

Maybe it isn’t a big deal, but you might want to keep that in mind next time either Kilmer or Seaquist earnestly assures you that petty partisanship has no place in the legislative process.

Sumner Schoenike, the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge 26th District Rep. Jan Angel for her seat in the Washington State Legislature, kicked off his campaign on Tuesday by condemning “the poisonous, partisan politics in Olympia.”

By this, one can only assume he actually meant opposition to the virtual single-party governance currently on display in Washington state, because the words were no sooner out of his mouth than he launched into a poisonous, partisan attack of his own.

Calling his Republican opponent a “weak leader,” Schoenike concluded that “Jan Angel hasn’t done anything of consequence during her first term.”

He continued, “She gives the impression she is working hard, but the public has a hard time figuring out what she is really doing.”

In fact, as a freshman lawmaker Angel has actually enjoyed about as productive a term as could be expected under the circumstances. But one shouldn’t overlook — as Schoenike hopes you will — that she has not only served only one of her alloted two sessions in the Legislature, but as a member of a severely outmanned minority party.

Consequently, much of what has had to pass for actual accomplishment consisted of pointing out the excesses of the party in power.

As a freshman, neither Angel nor Schoenike could be expected to author and pass sweeping legislation. And as a Republican, Angel faced even more daunting odds.

But we knew that going in, and yet she managed to earn her seat by a comfortable margin in a year when just having a “D” behind your name on the ballot should have been worth at least 50 percent of the vote.

The point is, just because Angel didn’t flood Olympia with a blizzard of legislation during her first year in office doesn’t mean she didn’t serve her constituents well by pointing out the flaws in the bills others were passing.

Just as we expected she would when we elected her.

It may not seem fair to over-scrutinize what a person says when they’re coping with emotional and financial setbacks. Then again, if you insist standing up in public and lecturing the county commissioners on the subject of economics, you should probably be prepared to have someone point out when you’re spouting nonsense.

And that’s all the more true if it’s by no means clear the commissioners understand the subject any better than you do.

Audrey Graf, whose husband Michael faces the prospect of being laid off from his job as a corrections officer at the Kitsap County Jail because of the county’s persistent budget problems, last week informed the commissioners that, “If my husband loses his job, we will no longer be able to afford daycare. The daycare workers will lose income and will no longer be able to pay for their haircuts. There is a trickle-down effect that happens when you pass a budget that lays off needed personnel.”

Um, no.

In point of fact, as a public employee, Mr. Graf’s salary is paid by the taxpayers. Which means that if he isn’t receiving it, there’s simply more left in our pockets to pay for our own daycare and haircuts — or whatever else we might choose.

From the Grafs’ perspective, it may seem as though those dollars disappeared from the local economy. But the truth is, they’re just being spent by someone else.

That’s not to say Mr. Graf doesn’t perform an important function. Many — though certainly not all — public servants do, which explains why we willingly employ millions of them despite the fact that their salaries show up firmly on the debit side of the ledger.

To state what should be obvious, government by itself produces neither wealth nor employment.

Zip. Zero. Nada.

At best, government merely confiscates resources from productive workers in the private sector and use them to fund services society as a whole requires. Where to draw the line regarding which services actually warrant funding is the essence of political debate. But that doesn’t alter the fact that it’s the private sector that underwrites the public sector, not the other way around.

With all due respect to Mrs. Graf, one can make a reasonable argument that her husband’s continued employment as a corrections officer is important in terms of public safety. But to suggest that paying his salary benefits all of us because he, in turn, will re-spend it is to completely misunderstand the whole concept behind a market-based economy.

When a private-sector worker creates something of value where previously nothing existed, the resulting new dollars inevitably trickle down to others through the goods and services he or she buys. But when a public-sector job is created, it simply means existing dollars trickle from the person who earned them to someone else — usually someone a politician considers more deserving.

The point is, there’s a huge difference between “trickle-down” economics and “trickle-around” economics, if you will.

As I say, it’s frustrating though predictable that someone whose grasp of economics is confined to her own circumstances should make the mistake of believing government can actually improve the economy by redistributing someone else’s wealth.

But the real danger comes when those in government start believing it, too.

I’ve never taken more heat for anything I’ve written than I did back in 2000, when I did an editorial critical of Festival of Chimes & Lights.

To be clear, it wasn’t intended as a criticism of the concept so much as its execution. But that didn’t keep me from looking like Port Orchard’s resident Grinch.

Chimes & Lights made a modest debut in 1999 as a way to show off the new City Hall’s carillon and draw Christmas shoppers downtown, and organizers were pleasantly surprised when thousands of people showed up.

Quick to recognize the community had a potential hit on its hands, the event was expanded in its second year to include music, hayrides, a theater troupe and other holiday fare.

The result, as I famously chronicled, was a comedy of errors that included a free-for-all each time the hayride wagon returned to the curb for another load of youngsters, the bells interrupting Mayor Jay Weatherill’s welcoming speech, the unfortunate placement of a children’s choir in a location that prevented anyone from hearing them, and much more.

I pointed out the flaws in the program not to embarrass or hurt anyone’s feelings. Rather, I simply wanted to challenge Chimes & Lights organizers to iron out the problems before they killed an otherwise promising event.

On the festival’s 10th anniversary, I should belatedly point out that they’ve done just that, and what started out shakily has evolved into a cherished holiday tradition for all of South Kitsap.

Even better, Chimes & Lights appears to be attracting visitors from surrounding communities who come to soak in the festivities and, not coincidentally, leave a little money behind.

People of my generation and older remember when a community was almost expected to host this sort of holiday celebration, and it’s a nostalgic experience for us, as well as a treat for our children and grandchildren.

There simply aren’t enough Chimes & Lights in the world these days, which explains why Port Orchard’s has become so irreplaceable in 10 short years.

It won’t come as a surprise if local law enforcement officials use this past weekend’s murder of four Lakewood police officers to buttress their argument that the Kitsap County Sheriff and Prosecutor’s Offices shouldn’t have to absorb the budget cuts the county is imposing on them.

County Prosecutor Russ Hauge, whose office has been instructed to slash $800,000 from its budget, has been emphatic for months that the cutbacks threaten public safety by forcing him to drop charges against offenders who might otherwise have been successfully prosecuted.

“Currently we have two serious homicides charged,” Hauge recently told the Kitsap commissioners. “There are at least two more under investigation, and a potential two-count vehicular homicide to deal with. Each serious case needs the constant attention of at least two lawyers and one legal assistant. And along the way, all members of the Criminal Division management team will be engaged.”

With so much manpower tied up handling these more serious cases, Hauge says his office simply can’t afford to pursue all the lesser offenses that need attention, which could result in dangerous criminals being left on the street rather than behind bars.

In some ways the Lakewood tragedy bears this out. The prime suspect in the killings, Maurice Clemmons, has an extensive criminal history including at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and eight or more felony charges in Washington.

Most disturbingly, he’s repeatedly been released from custody over the objections of those who recognized the threat he posed.

Clemmons, in fact, had been released from jail, apparently with a grudge against law enforcement, after being arrested on a charge of raping a 12-year-old just six days before the shooting. Which raises the specter of such a person falling through the cracks in Kitsap County if they can’t be prosecuted or incarcerated for budgetary reasons.

At the same time, the fact that Clemmons was repeatedly paroled, commuted and otherwise overlooked sounds more like a case of gross incompetence, poor judgment and outright stupidity than anything else — which shouldn’t happen here or anywhere else regardless of budget constraints.

Clemmons’ most recent discharge from custody in Pierce County, for example, had nothing to do with that community’s inability or unwillingness to prosecute him. It was the fault of a judge who set bail so low that Clemmons was able to afford it despite a list of prior convictions that stretched into double digits. While out on bail, he was ordered to wear an electronic ankle bracelet — which he proceeded to cut off almost immediately and go on his merry way.

Make no mistake: Maurice Clemmons is an animal who long ago forfeited the right to live in a free society, and anyone with a scintilla of intelligence recognized it long before his evil manifested itself on Sunday morning. That he was allowed to roam free stalking police officers instead of making brooms in a state prison can be laid at the feet of a procession of law enforcement officials incapable of doing the job for which they were hired or elected, not a shortage of resources. And presumably we’re not making the same mistake here in Kitsap County with similarly dangerous felons.

But if we are, budget cuts won’t excuse it.

Writing about this week’s shockingly under-reported (at least in this country) “Climategate” scandal in the UK Telegraph, James Delingpole advises, “If you own any shares in alternative energy companies, I should start dumping them NOW.”

I mention this only because, had it not been for the Port of Bremerton’s protracted decision this past summer to abandon its Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) project, South Kitsap residents would now be very heavily (and perhaps irretrievably) invested in precisely the sort of companies he’s referring to.

In case you missed it, the international scandal, which the Melbourne (Australia) Herald-Sun describes as “the greatest in modern science,” involves computer hackers who broke into the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit database and made public scores of e-mails between the CRU and (formerly) prominent scientists from all over the world revealing a systematic campaign to misreport the dangers of man-made global warming — and, in fact, perpetrate a massive hoax.

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline,” reads one such e-mail, detailing how researchers whose data actually showed the earth was in the midst of a cooling trend routinely phonied up the evidence to make it appear we were on the verge of being burnt to a cinder.

And this isn’t just a few isolated eggheads we’re talking about. The CRU is the lead agency compiling data for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose projections are cited as gospel when global warming alarmists push for things like cap-and-trade legislation.

Closer to home, the 2009 Washington State Legislature directed the departments of Agriculture (WSDA), Commerce, Ecology, Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resources and Transportation to develop a comprehensive (read: expensive) strategy regarding climate change by Dec. 1, 2011.

Of course that was before a smoking gun was produced that shows global warming isn’t happening.

Not that anyone should expect the bureaucrats at these agencies to acknowledge the Climategate revelations.

They, like the fraudulent scientists caught red-handed, have too great a stake in perpetuating a con game that expands their own power bases.

But it won’t wash this time.

According to a Rasmussen Poll that came out even before Climategate broke, 47 percent of Americans believe any warming of the environment is due to natural factors, compared to 37 percent who believe it’s otherwise. This is a 10 percent swing in just the past year and a half — and remember, it came before people realized the earth wasn’t warming in the first place.

Which brings us back to SEED, whose backers earnestly assured us a green-technology business park would be a shrewd investment for the Port of Bremerton as the threat of global warming stampeded the world’s population toward environmentally friendly technologies.

It won’t happen — nor should it.

Thankfully, the powers-that-be at the port dodged a bullet by reluctantly yielding to common sense rather than hucksterism masquerading as science.

Instead, the port will now presumably develop an industrial park based on sound business practices rather than a political agenda whose whole premise has been exposed as a lie.

I’d feel a lot better if the port’s leaders had recognized they were building their tax-subsidized house on a foundation of sand at the time rather than simply bowing to public opinion in killing SEED. But sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

Referring to cost-cutting strategies recently having been embraced by Kitsap’s government, County Administrator Nancy Buonanno Grennan last week said, “Sometimes it takes a crisis to force a new way of doing business.”

With all due respect, why?

Grennan said many of the administrative changes — things like consolidating services, travel cutbacks and the like — will likely remain in effect even when the current economic climate improves.

Again, when it comes to spending our tax dollars, shouldn’t government always be in crisis mode?

In my household — like most others, I assume — we have good months and bad months. When things are bad, we’re looking to squeeze a dime out of every nickel. When things are good, relatively speaking, we’re somewhat less diligent.

But at least we’re spending our own money, not someone else’s.

In any case, I can’t say I’m as gratified as I might be to hear the county has suddenly discovered bold and innovative ways to save money. Instead of praising them for their new-found creativity, I find myself asking why it took until now to get serious about economizing.

How come when the county is raking in more than it needs, life is good, but when it has to live within its means, that’s a crisis? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

My particular favorite budget-reducing technique is the plan to pay the incoming administrative services director $15,000 less than Shawn Gabriel, who announced his resignation last month, was making. It begs the question, if you can find a qualified applicant willing to work for the lower figure, weren’t you overpaying the incumbent?

In layman’s terms, this new strategy is known as capitalism, and it works pretty darned well in the private sector, where people are paid according to what they’re willing to work for rather than simply picking a nice, round figure out of thin air.

And frankly, if forcing government to actually embrace supply and demand and work a little harder to make sure it’s not wasting our hard-earned tax dollars constititutes a crisis, I’m all for making sure this one lingers a while longer.

There weren’t too many highlights for the home team in South Kitsap’s 63-14 loss to Skyline on Saturday night in the opening round of the state 4A football playoffs, so I found myself looking for opportunities to be creative while standing around on the sideline shooting pictures.

The game was played at Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma and I couldn’t help noticing there was a church right next door with a lighted cross. I made a mental note to see if I could incorporate the image in a photo if the two teams ever got down to the appropriate yard line, and in the second quarter  they finally did.

This is the shot I came up with while I was arguing with the referee about how close to the sidelines I could stand. I call it “Fourth Down and a Prayer” — kind of an apt metaphor for the kind of night the Wolves had.

I can’t think of anyplace to publish the picture in the paper, but I think it’s kind of neat under the circumstances.