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Page 1: april 1 poi editorial pages

OPINIONPort Orchard

Perhaps the decision of the bound-ary review board on the proposed “McCormick East” annexation can help Kitsap County and the city of Port Orchard move toward a more coordi-nated approach to annexations.

The county would be better off if undeveloped land like the 110 acres in question were annexed by the city before it is developed for residential purposes.

Providing an urban level of govern-mental services to such a large, new subdivision is something county offi-cials claim not to be able to do, so plac-ing this responsibility on the city before development is an advantage from its point of view.

The area is already designated in the county’s comprehensive plan for residential development as part of the urban growth area adjacent to Port Orchard, so there appears to be no rea-son to resist annexation that appears to be consistent with the plan.

But, as is sometimes the case, there may be drawbacks that outweigh the advantages.

Alongside part of the McCormick East 110 acres is a narrow strip of land that would be surrounded on three sides by the city if the annexation were approved by the boundary review board.

This strip of land is already devel-oped for residential use at a relatively low density.

Annexing the 110 acres and leaving out the seven residential parcels of land alongside it would create an irregular boundary between the city and county that would follow no natural or man-made physical feature.

The boundary review board’s deci-

sions are sup-posed to use physical bound-aries where prac-tical and avoid creating “abnor-mally irregular boundaries.”

If there are other consider-

ations that outweigh failure to accom-plish these objectives, the board might still approve the annexation.

So it’s not as though this is a “slam dunk” decision.

One might wonder how this situa-tion arose, since the city officials should be aware of the criteria the board must use in making its decision, and the city had an opportunity to adjust the annexation proposal to be consistent with the criteria.

This annexation proposal, like many in the past, came from the landowner who wants the 110 acres annexed into the city.

Such a petition doesn’t have to be accepted by the city without change.

The council may adjust the pro-posed boundaries to avoid running afoul of the boundary review board’s criteria.

But the council decided not to adjust the boundaries to include the seven smaller parcels of residential land, since not enough of those landowners might agree to annexation and sign the peti-tion.

This is perhaps a point on which the

city and county officials could work out consistent policies which would result in annexations that make sense when-ever one or more landowners come forward seeking annexation.

When residents or landowners in unincorporated parts of the urban growth areas take the first step toward annexation, the city council should not be shy about putting a burden on them to bring along others who ought to be annexed at the same time.

They would have to persuade their neighbors, if their land is already developed, so why not expect the same from the owners of undevel-oped land?

The difficulty in providing govern-mental services where there are irregu-lar boundaries that follow no physical feature may not be great in most cases, but why create any difficulty at all if it can be avoided?

Of course, it would be handy if the city could offer advantages to resi-dents in nearby unincorporated urban growth areas.

Then persuading neighboring land-owners to agree to annexation would be much easier.

Even in the absence of good selling points, the city council should at least try in each case to adjust annexation proposals rather than wait to see if the boundary review board disapproves inappropriate proposals.

Passively accepting whatever annex-ation petitions are offered by people who want their land annexed by the city is not always the path of least resistance — or even the best path to follow.

Bob Meadows is a Port Orchard resident.

IN OUR OPINION

Thanks and congratulations to U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle for reminding the world that our legal system exists to establish innocence and punish guilt, not as a mega-

phone through which to shriek half-baked political philosophy.Settle on Monday sentenced five people — including two

priests and a nun — to actual jail time for a 2009 protest at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.

Or, to be more precise, for their criminal activity under the guise of legitimate protest.

Like all citizens, the “Bangor 5,” as they have been dubbed by a captivated media, have every right under the Constitution to express their objections to whatever they like — in this case the nuclear weapons stored at the Kitsap facility.

But the laws of society proscribe limits within which our protests must voiced, no matter how passionately one believes in his or her cause.

For the Bangor protesters — who ranged in age from 61 to 84 — these little excursions onto federal property either seemed like great sport or a way to focus more media scrutiny on their efforts than marching up and down the sidewalk with a sign could.

Hopefully, Judge Settle’s ruling this week disabused them of both notions.

As we’ve noted before, when the protesters aren’t causing a problem or breaking laws, they should be ignored so law enforcement and the judicial system deal with more dangerous criminals.

But if they’re more than a nuisance — when they’re breaking laws deliberately and habitually — any sentence that doesn’t discourage similar behavior is inadequate.

We pay local police, county deputies and state troopers to enforce the laws that keep us safe, not to provide photo ops for a motley collection of geriatric deliquents who think they’re either too old or too well-connected to be held accountable when they break laws the rest of us are obliged to obey.

Judge correct to throw the book at ‘Bangor 5’

Classified Ads (360) 394-8700Fax (360) 876-4458What’s Up (360) 779-4464All Other Departments (360) 876-4414

online edition at: www.portorchardindependent.com

ADMINISTRATIONPUBLISHER: Rich Peterson [email protected]

ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR: Janis French

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT: Karen Minard

CIRCULATIONMANAGER: Noreen Hamren [email protected]

ADVERTISINGMARKETING REPRESENTATIVES: Mike Schiro [email protected] Tracy Keller [email protected]

PRODUCTIONSTAFF ARTIST: Kelsey Thomas

EDITORIALEDITOR: Jeff Rhodes [email protected]

NEWS STAFF: Kaitlin Strohschein [email protected]

Chris Chancellor [email protected]

WHAT’S UP: Jennifer Morris [email protected]

WNPA member

We’re Independently audited!

CONTACT US AT: P.O. Box 27, Port Orchard, WA 98366

BOB MEADOWSIndependent Columnist

Annexation can’t always be done alone

PORT ORCHARDPORT ORT OR RCRCR HAHAH RDARDAINDEPENDENT

Page A6 www.portorchardindependent.com Friday, April 1, 2011 • Port Orchard Independent

quoteof theweek

“Every time it rains, there’s a major flood in the men’s bathroom. Luckily, there’s a drain in the men’s bathroom, so the water comes in and goes right back out.”

— Jeff Brody, Kitsap Regional Library community relations director, on the new roof planned for the Port Orchard branch

Write to us: Send letters to 2950 Mile Hill Dr., Port Orchard, WA 98366, or fax to (360) 876-4458, or e-mail to [email protected].

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Independent or its staff

Page 2: april 1 poi editorial pages

Friday, April 1, 2011 • Port Orchard Independent www.portorchardindependent.com Page A7

By MARK REDDEMANNFor the Independent

The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 10 were unprecedented in their ferocity.

Thousands are dead, many thousands more are missing. The thoughts and prayers of Energy Northwest employees are with those who now comfort the injured and shelter the homeless as that nation begins a long, painful recovery effort.

Now, much of the international focus is on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors.

Though the plants were able to survive a 9.0 earthquake and operators safely shut down the reactors, the resulting tsunami took away the plant operators’ ability to deliver water to the core, which led to the immensely challenging situation they are still facing.

In the past few weeks, there has been too much misinformation about nuclear energy which is playing on people’s fears.

The anti-nuclear lobby saw an opportu-nity, and they are exploiting it.

The immediate comparisons for many people are to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl — which, of course, is understandable.

However, Chernobyl was a weapons-grade reactor with no containment struc-

ture. Meanwhile, the partial meltdown at the

Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979 actually demonstrated that the plant’s safety systems worked, but nevertheless served as a wake-up call to the industry to constantly examine safety and ensure every employee puts safety first – at all times.

The United States developed strong safety culture in the years that followed Three Mile Island, aided not only by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but by the industry itself, which developed an intensive peer-review organization focused on operational excellence.

They are but one reason the U.S. nucle-ar energy industry remains, more than 30 years later, the nation’s safest industry, and the world’s gold standard for nuclear power operations.

All nuclear reactors, including Washing-ton’s Columbia Generating Station, have multiple systems for core cooling that fol-low the principle of “defense in depth.”

However, U.S. reactors have more equip-ment in place than those at Fukushima to cope in a situation where there is a total loss of power.

In response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the industry made additional changes and modifications to bolster both safety and security.

Columbia’s multiple back-up systems

include three emergency diesel generators, a battery system, a portable diesel genera-tor for re-charging the battery system and a manually operated, steam-driven pump to provide water to the core during a reactor shutdown if electrical power is not available.

We also own a fire truck that can pump water into the reactor core and used fuel pool through installed fire hose connec-tions.

Our nation’s 104 nuclear power plants are also among the most durable facilities in America, able to withstand all forms of natural and man-made disasters, including major volcanic, seismic and flood activity.

Columbia is built to withstand a quake in excess of magnitude 7.0 and is sited far enough from the Columbia River — three miles — to avoid any potential flood scenario, including a breach of the Grand Coulee Dam.

Many have taken the events at Fukushima as an opportunity to question the necessity of developing additional U.S. nuclear power resources.

Now is not the time for that debate. Once the situation at Fukushima is sta-

bilized, there will be an intense reconstruc-tion of what happened in the hours and days after the tsunami struck to find out what could have been done differently, and the entire industry is committed to incor-porating lessons learned as they emerge.

That is the culture of the industry. Mark Reddemann is the CEO of

Energy Northwest, a consortium of 28 Washington state public power utilities.

Don’t believe the nuclear naysayersGUEST OPiniOn

Mark Reddemann

I’m a chief steward and AFL/CIO delegate for an international union.

Your article is very logical, however, you need to be involved in a public sector union in order to get a full grasp on what is going on nationwide.Yes, it is going to happen

here. It has already started to happen here — last week, as a

matter of fact. If the elected people in Olympia do not

take care of it now, they will be voted out of office and replaced by people that will take care of the problem. The financial demands of these public sector unions are a huge tax liability on the taxpayers that is un-sustainable and will end up bankrupt-ing this state in the future. — from my57vet on March 28

Their are some strange circumstances here — first, that Martinez and McDonald had the same (kind of) gun and, second, that they had the

same ammunition. Glock guns are common among law enforce-ment but because of the expense not so com-mon with the public. Because the investigation took so long, the suspicion is that there was evidence tampering, possibly a cover-up. If there were powder marks on the girl, they should have told us that a month and a half ago.

— from jedisawyer on March 25

I’m not sure where you got your information on the cost of a Glock handgun, but they are not expensive at all. You can pick one up for between $500 and $600.

— from k30 on March 25

RE: “Could a Wisconsin-esque impasse happen here?” — March 25

onlinereaders respond

Taken from comments posted by readers to stories at

www.portorchardindependent.com

RE: “WSP: Walmart shooting an ‘unbelievably tragic situation’ ” — March 25

If you’re inclined to be more charitable than I am, you might write off then U.S. House Speaker

Nancy Pelosi’s groan-inducing quote from a year ago this

month that, “We have to pass the (healthcare) bill so you can find out what’s in it” as just another of her many foot-in-the-mouth moments.

On the state level, however, there’s nothing

remotely ambigu-ous about the tac-tics of Senate Ways and Means Chair Ed Murray (D-Seattle), who apparently wants

to make the sort of chutzpah Pelosi merely sug-gested a matter of policy.According to an Associated Press story from last weekend, Murray during the current session has introduced a total of 22 “title-only” bills -- which are pretty much what they sound like.Although by no means the Legislature’s only practitioner, Murray is the unapologetic king of introducing bills that include only a vague title and no other verbiage on which his fellow law-makers can base their votes.

Obviously, it’s the sort of tactic you can only get away with when you and your cronies hold a sizable majority.For his part, Murray shrugs off his “title-only” bills as a mere expedi-ent.“Every year, evidently, as they did this morning, staff brings a series

of bills that are potentially needed to enact the budget, so that we can get out of here,” Murray said. “You start preparing vehicles that can accomplish whatever you’re going to need in the end.”“Here we go again,” responds Rep. Jan Angel (R-Port Orchard). “I have e-mailed Sen. Murray stating my disapproval of what he is doing and the lack of transparency.”Hear, hear.I’m as anxious as the next guy for fly-by-night lawmakers like Sen. Murray to go home where they can’t do as much damage.I just think it might be nice if he — and for that matter the rest of us — had a better idea what he was up to while he actually is there.

— from “Rhodes Less Traveled,” by Jeff Rhodes

bestof the blogs

Taken from the staff blogs at

www.portorchard independent.com

‘Title only’ bills show how little ther author cares what we think

Jeff Rhodes

By BOB LAMBFor the Independent

We have a federal law forbidding the growing, manufacturing, selling or using of marijuana.

There are many articles saying that the use is a benefit in combating the symptoms of certain medical problems. Meanwhile, there are at least an equal amount of stud-ies saying the reverse.

One fact is clear, however. The drug in marijuana can be extracted and placed in pill form and dispensed as are other legal forms of drugs derived from opium and cocaine.

So what are our lawmakers doing? With billions of bucks to cut from the state bud-

get, they have the time to discuss creating laws that allow the establishment of mari-juana drug stores.

These are stores to dispense illegal drugs.

If it is so beneficial, and this is not just a way to allow the use of an illegal drug, then why not make it easy and controllable?

To obtain it, the person would require a prescription from a doctor that would be filled like any other prescription, from a certified and qualified drug store, prepared by a qualified pharmacist.

When I asked my local drug store about

them dispensing it, I was told the could not because it is illegal to sell and because there are no legal sources of supply.

Thus, the bottom line is that our law-makers are devising a law that establishes a way for unqualified people to run a drug store dispensing prescription drugs that qualified pharmacists cannot dispense because there is no legal source of supply.

And even if there were, it would be a federal crime.

These are the same people who are going to balance the budget, establish our education system, and so on.

Doesn’t that give you are warm and fuzzy feeling?

Bob Lamb is a Manchester resident.

Why ask pols to sort out medical marijuana mess?LETTErS