Rhodes Less Traveled

Just to elaborate on a few points I made in this week’s editorial (http://tinyurl.com/ycecmpu), I’m a bit concerned the South Kitsap voters who fueled Roger Zabinski’s victory over Lynn Horton in Tuesday’s election to the Port of Bremerton board of commissioners won’t be getting quite what they bargained for.

While Horton outpolled Zabinski 49 percent to 29 in the August primary, during which only residents of the Central Kitsap district Zabinski will be representing could vote, the outcome on Tuesday was markedly different.

In the general election, seats on the board are voted on by everyone living in the Port of Bremerton taxing district — two-thirds of whom are South Kitsap residents. And while CK voters were obviously comfortable with Horton — the former mayor of Bremerton — South Kitsap voters clearly weren’t, as evidenced by Zabinski’s 54-45 win.

As if voters on this side of Sinclair Inlet weren’t suspicious enough of Horton, the current commissioners did her no favors this summer by tapping sitting Bremerton Mayor Cary Bozeman as the port’s new CEO.

For South Kitsap residents still smarting from the board’s decision in 2006 to raise their property taxes in order to give Bremerton’s marina a $22 million facelift, the prospect of one former Bremerton mayor already entrenched as the port’s CEO and another joining the team as a commissioner was at least one too many.

Ironically, her Bremerton connections notwithstanding, I suspect Horton would probably have governed in a manner somewhat more in keeping with South Kitsap’s wishes than what Zabinski has in mind.

Whatever her personal inclinations may be, Horton is first and foremost a politician who more than likely would have played it safe enough to hopefully get herself re-elected in four years.

Zabinski, on the other hand, was an outspoken supporter of the port’s Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) project until it became clear the concept was wildly unpopular with voters. Even so, he’s been known to suggest that the problem with SEED was its execution more than the basic concept — which sounds a little like code for, “We’ll try again as soon as the coast is clear.”

Simply put, I suspect that beneath Zabinski’s wonkish exterior beats the heart of an ideologue whose goals do not completely coincide with those of the South Kitsap voters who made his election possible.

The good news is, a year from now it won’t matter much anyway because by then current South Kitsap Commissioner Bill Mahan will either have voluntarily stepped down from the board or been unceremoniously retired by the voters.

Either way, my guess is his replacement will more closely resemble SK’s other commissioner — pragmatic, penurious Larry Stokes — than what Bremerton would prefer, thus giving South Kitsap and common sense a majority of votes on the board regardless of which direction Zabinski might want to take it.