Rhodes Less Traveled

Prior to last week’s Port Orchard City Council meeting, I told Mayor Lary Coppola the electric car he’d been test-driving was simply adorable.

“When I need a car,” I told him, “I buy one. And when I need an electric razor, I can buy one of those, too. What I can’t understand is how someone who wanted one could wind up with the other.”

No doubt the mayor endured a week of such witty observations, and yet he came away a believer in the vehicles.

“I was a skeptic when I started driving it,” he said. “But after a week, I’m impressed.”

Actually, my guess is Coppola already had a soft spot in his heart for EVs, given that he announced back in July the city was working with a major auto manufacturer to obtain grant funding that would allow Port Orchard to construct electric vehicle recharging stations at several of its municipal parking lots.

“(EVs) are coming — whether you like it, agree with the concept, or not,” Coppola said. “The Seattle metropolitan area is one of the largest pre-sale areas in the nation for EVs.”

Frankly, as one who’s frequently been horrified over the years by what our neighbors across the water think and say, I wouldn’t necessarily cite the buying habits of a few widgets over there as indicative of what the market at large will do.

At the same time, at least Coppola’s interest in green technology is predicated on the question of what his constituents can get out of it rather than using their money to subsidize what he believes is the environmentally responsible thing to do.

And that’s an important distinction.

Speaking for myself, I trust capitalism, not agenda-driven politcians.

And when the free market tells me electric cars are safe, practical and affordable, I might consider buying one.

Like Coppola, I’m all for figuring out where the market is headed and trying to get there first. What I can’t abide is government trying to tell the market where it should go rather than the other way around.

The Port Orchard City Council heard what, to my ears, was a chilling presentation on Tuesday night from a group calling itself the Kitsap Continuum of Care Coalition.

Although its true agenda is curiously mentioned nowhere in her agency’s title, KCCC coordinator Terry Schroeder was anything but mysterious about her goals.

“We want to establish at least two tent cities for the homeless in Kitsap County by the winter of 2010,” she said. “We’re asking city governments to evaluate their city ordinances and determine the permitting process for these tent cities by the end of August.”

To be clear, Schroeder and her group aren’t asking for city facilities. Rather, they envision churches and nonprofit agencies donating space and resources.
The city would merely sanction the program.

According to the Coalition, Kitsap County currently has a homeless population of around 3,000, less than 400 of whom are located in South Kitsap — although that number would presumably grow should ours be the community that rolls out the welcome mat.

Personally, I have a hard time seeing how a Port Orchard City Council that just a few weeks ago passed an ordinance banning billboard advertising on the basis of aesthetic and safety concerns could suddenly decide it has a duty to attract more transients.

On a human level, there are undoubtedly some heartbreaking stories among the county’s homeless. But by definition the city council is responsible for promoting the welfare of its residents, not those who would become residents — in tents and temporary encampments — if only Port Orchard made it hospitable to do so.

Quite simply, the city has enough problems of its own without inviting someone else’s to move here — along with the crime and drain on public resources that would surely follow.

As cold as it sounds, the first priority of the city council is to make Port Orchard a better place for those who live here, not for those who don’t live anywhere.

I think I deserve some kind of award for spending three hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon listening to a bunch of windy politicians bloviate.

Instead, I’ll hand out a few awards of my own based on my impressions of the candidate forum hosted by the Senior Action Committee at Towne Square Port Orchard.

• Best Debut — Marty McClendon. I wasn’t expecting much from him, and heaven knows he’s got a steep hill to climb going up against Derek Kilmer for the 26th District state Senate seat.

But after a shaky start, he settled down and went toe to toe pretty well against a popular incumbent.

• Biggest Surprise — Jesse Young. Going up against longtime U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks in his first-ever try for office is an audacious move, he might not even make it out of the Republican primary against fellow Republican Doug Cloud.

But this is a smart young man who scored a lot of points with a crowd that, by and large, knew nothing about him going in.

• Most Popular — A tie between Kilmer and 26th District Rep. Jan Angel. In addition to being a likable young man, Kilmer regularly defies party labels to vote like a Republican, which endears him to independents while still protecting his Democratic base.

Meanwhile, Angel plays her Port Orchard audience like a Stradivarius. She isn’t just a politician in this town — she’s a friend.

• Most Disingenuous — Sumner Schoenike. Angel’s Democratic challenger had the gall to tell the crowd he was opposed to raising taxes and wanted to cut regulatory red tape so that small businesses could grow the economy.

But the Gig Harbor physician’s signature issue is universal health care, and by now next to no one is falling for the line that we can cover everyone without huge tax increases and adding to the regulatory burden faced by businesses.

• Most Brutally Honest — Larry Seaquist. Asked straight out if he’d take a pledge not to increase taxes or fees, the incumbent 26th District House representative said unequivocally he wouldn’t.

It wasn’t necessarily what the crowd wanted to hear, but at least he spoke his mind.

I’m not entirely certain whether Port Orchard City Councilman Fred Chang’s latest petulant outburst was directed at this newspaper or was the product of his reflexive opposition to anything the majority of the council seems to support.

But his attempts to undermine the bidding process by which the Independent retained its status as the city’s newspaper of record was embarrassing even by his standards.

Both the Independent’s bid for the service and that of the Kitsap Sun were presented to the council at its June 21 meeting, and it was agreed a vote on the matter would be tabled until the dollar value of both could be ascertained.

The confusion stemmed from the fact that while the Sun’s bid of $2.85 per line to publish the city’s legal notices was 12 cents less than what the Independent bid, the Sun proposed to charge $7 per online posting, while we offered to publish online for free.

Once it became clear that the online charges made the Sun’s bid more expensive than ours, Chang apparently placed a call to the Sun and encouraged them to revise their offer.

Port Orchard Mayor Lary Coppola responded with a stern e-mail accusing Chang of undermining the bidding process and putting the city in a potentially difficult situation legally.

Obviously there’s a formal procedure to be followed in a public bidding process, and for Chang to unilaterally contact one party and suggest they revise their bid after the deadline had already passed was a pointless gesture at best and a dangerous one at worst.

Later, when it was suggested he recuse himself from voting on the matter, Chang said he would — if any of the other council members asked him to.

Huh? Either you do what’s right or you don’t, but asking for a show of hands about it just underscores your own ethical ambiguity.

Since the Independent ultimately won the bid by a vote of 5-2, we’re prepared to be big about the whole thing — even if that means ignoring the preening and pettifogging of Port Orchard’s most pretentious city council member.

Having lived in the Pacific Northwest for nearly half my life, I’ve learned to cope with its eccentricities — for the most part.

I can live with the rain and I can tolerate the fact that no one out here makes really authentic pizza. I’ve even gotten used to football games starting at 10 in the morning.

But I don’t think I’ll ever understand the fascination with fireworks.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of Independence Day and I love celebrating it with a good fireworks display.

But when I say a “good fireworks display,” I don’t mean my neighbors setting off M80’s or hurling tennis balls stuffed with gun powder.

Having spent my first 25 years in a community where tribal reservations can’t sell weapons-grade explosives to people with no training and little of no regulation regarding their use, I guess I’m just out of touch.

When I think of fireworks, I think of safe and spectacular exhibitions like Fathoms o’Fun — which I never miss. What other people think of, apparently, is inviting friends and relatives over to knock back a few beers laugh as you risk blowing your fingers off.

Yes, I know there are laws limiting what you can shoot off and when you can start, but there’s simply no way those laws can be enforced when so many simply ignore them.

In unincorporated Kitsap County, for example, fireworks can only be discharged from noon until 11 p.m. on July 4. Is that how it worked in your neighborhood?

In mine, the fusillade started on Friday night and extended well into Monday — at which point the fireworks stands were presumably clearing out their stocks for half price.

By this week, the streets are littered with the detritis of all this revelry. But of course if you’ve already ignored laws restricting what night you can celebrate, it just naturally follows that cleaning up after yourself is too much to ask.

This is how we celebrate independence, with third-degree burns, brush fires, disrespect for the law and mountains of garbage?

I repeat, I don’t get it.

Notwithstanding several well-chronicled bouts of profligacy, Kitsap County seems to do a pretty fair job of managing its expenses.

If you’ve ever showed up at the courthouse on a Friday to renew your license tabs — as I have — only to find the building closed, you get the idea.

In addition, the county has imposed staffing cuts, furloughs and whatever other means it can to make sure things are running lean.

Even so, Kitsap County is facing a shortfall of up to $5.7 million next year based mainly on a nationwide recession that limits how much consumers can purchase — and how much the county can skim off in sales taxes.

Predictably, the Kitsap commissioners seem to think a tax increase is in order. Unfortunately (for them, at least), they can’t hike property taxes by more than 1 percent a year without the voters’ approval. So they’re contemplating asking you to do so.

Care to predict how that vote will turn out?

“At some point, you need to go back and ask the people, ‘What do you want?’” North Kitsap Commissioner Steve Bauer explained. “You can’t just continue to cut year after year.”

No, but instead of cutting thinner slices of a shrinking pie, why not work harder at growing the pie?

Yes, I understand attracting business development is tough under the best of circumstances and next to impossible in a struggling economy. But can anyone say with a straight face Kitsap County is doing everything it can in that regard?

Can anyone look at the current lineup of commissioners and suggest they’d move heaven and earth to bring in an employer who needed to cut down a tree or put up a smokestack?

We hear a lot of talk about preserving the quality of life here, as though trees were the first thing an employer looks for in a new location.

Those things are important, but so are lower taxes, fewer regulations and a local government that sees you as something more than a necessary evil from whom you can wring tax dollars.

Port Orchard Mayor Lary Coppola appeared in court last week and bargained the DUI charges he was facing down to Negligent Driving — a simple misdemeanor, prompting the expected complaints that he was somehow shown favoritism.

As someone who sat in that courtroom for a full hour and a half after Coppola left and watched how the same judge handled something like 12 to 15 other DUI cases, however, I’m here to tell you that’s a lot of bunk.

For starters, neither the judge nor the prosecutor who accepted the diversion agreement knew Coppola from Adam.

The only difference between his outcome and that of the others was that Coppola was proactive and, on his lawyer’s advice, completed the necessary requirements — including a substance assessment, an alcohol information school, a victim panel and a voluntary defensive driver course — by the time he showed up for his arraignment.

The next step for the other offenders is a pre-trial hearing, during which most — if not all — will negotiate their sentences down just as Coppola did.

It only looks like he got a better deal than they did because he started working to mitigate his sentence from the outset and they didn’t.

I also dispute the assertion that pleading not-guilty amounts to not taking responsibility for his actions. Appearances aside, the plea is simply a formality.

Even judges discourage a guilty plea because it halts the proceedings right there, depriving the defendant of any chance to have the court consider such factors as it being his first offense.

Lastly, don’t forget that the settlement is contingent on his continuing to meet certain terms for two full years. If he screws up, the original charge will be reinstated and the judge will impose the maximum sentence.

Despite the burning desire of people who don’t like Lary Coppola anyway to see him crucified for this, there is simply no indication that his response was anything less than appropriate or that he got any more or less consideration than you or I would in similar circumstances.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m forced to admit I don’t earn in excess of $200,000 a year.

Nor do I ever expect to.

But I’d be very surprised if someone whose hand was at the other end of my purse string didn’t. Which is why I think the initiative being championed by Bill Gates, Sr., to impose a 5 percent surcharge on those in a higher bracket than you and I will ever be is a pretty silly idea.

With all due respect, my guess is that anyone who supports this half-baked measure falls into one of two categories — either they’re far below the threshold and bitter about it or so far above it that, like Mr. Gates, they wouldn’t miss 5 percent one way or the other.

The problem is, there’s a third classification — those earning more than $200,000 who’d rather pack up and move than continue to do business in a state that looks upon success as something to be penalized.

It’s a little like taxing liquor or cigarettes. On paper, it looks like a fine idea because you can calculate how much was consumed last year and pencil in 5 percent of that total in additional revenues for next year.

Better yet, the people you’re socking it to don’t seem terribly sympathetic in the abstract.

Unfortunately for this sort of accounting, however, there’s an old saying that the best way to assure less of any behavior is to start taxing it.

Sin taxes never seem to generate as much money as they’re supposed to because people wind up smoking and drinking less rather than paying more. But at least you can argue there’s some benefit to that.

On the other hand, I can’t quite see how anyone benefits by driving the most successful among us —those most likely to invest in the businesses that employ everyone else — out of the state.

Cathartic as it might be for the 97 percent of us who won’t be affected to pick the pockets of the 3 percent who will, we’d do well to remember that not every wealthy person feels as guilty about his millions as Mr. Gates, and most are a lot more reluctant to hand them over without a fight.

Members of the Port Orchard City Council have been uncharacteristically mum about last week’s unannounced but unanimous vote to slap a 180-day moratorium on new billboard permits.

But it’s pretty obvious what’s going on.

Clearly they have indications that someone — or several someones — want to erect a slew of new billboards around town and the council members are working feverishly to rewrite Port Orchard’s sign code in order to prevent what they fear will be visual clutter.

And you may think that’s a great thing.

I know I’m no particular fan of billboard advertising, but I recognize there’s something even more important at stake here than my own selfish desires — namely the concept of property rights.

This may sound like a radical concept in the current environment, but I cling to the quaint notion that people who invest their hard-earned money to buy land should be the ones to decide how that land is to be used — perhaps earning a return on that investment even though it may offend my tender sensibilities.

I’m not suggesting there shouldn’t be limits, of course.

You’re not entitled to build your own dam or store toxic wastes, for example.

But there’s a monumental difference between things that materially affect the property values and quality of life of those around us and the purely subjective matter of what is or isn’t attractive.

Like a lawsuit, where you have to prove actual damages in order to prevail, I think the burden of proof should be on the city to prove that new billboards could potentially impose a measurable cost on those who live here.

And if the best you can come up with is, “I don’t think they’re pretty,” you simply haven’t reached the threshold necessary to take money out of the pockets of property owners who stand to profit by leasing out space to advertisers.

I’m all for beauty, I just don’t see anything beautiful in essentially stealing someone else’s property by telling him he can’t use it in a manner that in no way, shape or form hurts me.

I was pleased — I suppose — to read last week that the city of Port Orchard was embracing so enthusiastically its new Green Initiative.

As one who lives here and follows local government fairly closely, however, I’m also gratified the effort is grounded in realism.

There’s nothing wrong, for example, with trying to save paper by conducting as much city business online as possible.

If the city is anything like the office I work in, though, I doubt if the results will be terribly encouraging, since there seems to be no shortage of clutter on my desk despite our corporate commitment to going paperless.

Still, I suppose the question is how much worse things would look if we weren’t trying.

Of much more practical nature is the city’s on-again, off-again love affair with hybrid vehicles.

Despite a stated goal of adding electric-gasoline cars to Port Orchard’s rolling stock, the city leaders have been reluctant to pull the trigger on such purchases given that the price tag for these vehicles is routinely $10,000 more than for an old-fashioned gas-guzzler.

I guess maybe I’m just being my environmentally insentive self here, but I’ve never quite understood the apppeal of hybrids in the first place.

It’s true you don’t spend as much at the gas pump when you own one, but it’s not like they’re giving electricity away, either.

Even more surprising, I would assume, to most of the tree-huggers who drive them is that the power that flows from your outlet into your Prius is likely to be generated almost exclusively by coal or hydroelectric dams, depending on where you live. This is better for the environment?

Ultimately, what a person drives or doesn’t drive comes down to a personal choice, and personally, I couldn’t care less what others do.

I do care what the city of Port Orchard buys with its taxpayer dollars, though. And to that end, I applaud the city for not being stampeded into making pointless, expensive decisions based on nothing more than political correctness.