Thursday, April 3rd, 2008...12:17 pm
Bainbridge Island — cleanest trails in the county!
Our little island has a rep. Not necessarily a good one, I learned the hard way when I started blogging for the Seattle P-I website.
Turns out the old-timers hate the new-timers and “off-islanders” hate the islanders, regardless of when they arrived on the island.
The main bad rep is rich, snotty people who think they’re better than anyone else. Ironic to me, because when we moved here, six years ago, house prices were LOWER here than in Seattle. Some of us live in smaller, older (but not “historic landmark”) homes, with no water view and with unmanicured lawns, piles of tree debris modest natural backyard habitats, and are mostly happy to have a good public school system and some greenery around. I’m not saying there AREN’T rich, snotty people here, but there are a few regular folk, too.
But we normal ones don’t get the attention (well, one might if one had a blog….).
I could go on and on to try and convince you of the practically normal people living here, but then this happens:
Kid and I took the pooch on a new trail (we also apparently vote for more public, swamp green lands around here). But as we walked, the peacefulness morphed into noise.
Some neighboring property owner must be doing construction, I thought to myself.
We walk on. Turn a corner. And there it is.
A LEAF BLOWER! Carried by a Parks and Rec Dept. guy.
He was cleaning the trail. It seems some dirt and twigs had found their way onto the path. That just would not DO. DIRT on Bainbridge trails?!
I probably missed that city council or parks department meeting (since I never go to them)–”and another thing, Madame Mayor, the trails around here are just so….so messy. If we put in a trail, we need to keep that trail nice. And pretty. Our consultants’ report recommended allocating $500,000 for trail cleaning, including leaf blowing, because the people of Bainbridge did not elect me only to have their trails mucked up with LEAVES, DIRT, and well, MUCK on their outdoor walking paths.”
While we hear all the woes of city and county budget belt-tightening, fewer buses, no road repairs, and shorter library hours, we can at least sleep well knowing Bainbridge will still have the cleanest trails around!
And, I have two words for whoever is budgeting for BI Parks and Rec nowadays: BLOW THIS!
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7 Comments
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I think its probably truw everywhere that the established folks and the newcomers are at odds. Here, you don’t count as a local unless your family has been here at least three generations.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Hummm….I wonder Wendy, was the trail paved or dirt. I hope you had bags for what came out the back end of Becca or he might aim that leaf blower at you.
That off island on island thing has always bothered me. Even for an event as positive as training for the Breast Cancer 3-Day the first thing some of the island women did was ask if my Kingston friend whether she was off or on island. Course if you give the “correct” on island answer then they want to know where you live so you can be further catagorized. Wouldn’t want anyone judged on their own merits when we can use debt or salary as a benchmark now would we. Risky risky stuff…..
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
The trail in question was DIRT!! with a little boardwalk tossed in. He was on DIRT!
April 4th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Alright, alright, they were leaf blowing a dirt trail. Gotta make you smile…..
April 5th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Now that I’ve been called out — I am one of those hateful old-timers and, now, off-islanders — I must speak out.
To agree with you. Freaking ridiculous. The island’s new tourism logo should be a big toilet-seat cover that says: “Bainbridge Island: Sanitized For Your Protection.”
That being said, the Bainbridge parks department is its own entity, and not a city agency. So the city’s funding woes have little to do with leaf-blowing budgetary line items.
Then again, the parks department is hardly rolling in the green stuff, either. When I covered it as a reporter, it would regular go for a fat two-year maintenance levy election, lose, threaten to chain up all the parks, try again with a leaner ballot measure, and get back to “normal.” Does that still happen? I haven’t been following all that closely.
Wendy, I think you should write a letter to the editor. Call out whoever thinks leaf-blowing on trails is necessary and worth paying for. Get a good civic debate going.
In the Bainbridge Islander, of course. Screw The Review.
(Then again, I wonder if maybe it was a misguided volunteer or Eagle Scout or something doing leaf-blowing on their own.)
April 8th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I think before you get too carried away about the leaf blower, you should give the parks staff a call and ask what the worker was doing. That wooden walkway in the center of the trail needs to be swept so it doesn’t get too slippery. A slippery walkway and an island full of lawyers can be a very bad combination.
I also invite you to attend the upcoming trails committee meeting if you want to find out what the parks staff is doing on the trails. It is this coming Monday at 7pm at Strawberry Park.
http://www.bainbridgeislandtrails.org/forum/index.php?topic=151.0
April 9th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Hey, Ed, I was a lawyer and I resemble that remark!
Actually, I was the kind of lawyer who would hike a trail FOR the leaves, dirt and peace it offers. And even slip on my butt where it was wet (which it was ALL the time in Juneau).
I wonder if it is general policy here, then, to clean all wooden boardwalks on trails? That is expensive trail maintenance! I wonder if the taxpayers in favor of new trails realizes this policy?
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