As the New Year begins, the shakers and movers in East Jefferson County hope 2012 will follow a positive path.
“Although 2012 will likely be another challenging year economically, I am always thankful and impressed by the strength, resourcefulness and pluck of those who choose to make Port Townsend home,” said Port Townsend Development Director Rick Sepler.
“While there will be bumps in the road ahead, we can count on a community that, when accurately provided with the facts, will make good decisions.”
Upstage owner Mark Cole took an even broader view.
“As challenging a year as this was, I should be more worried about myself, but I am more concerned about the world and us as a species,” Cole said.
“I think I need to take as much as I have, to help make the world a better place.”
When asked about their hopes for the new year, people answered with regard to their profession, their beliefs or a combination thereof, though some, like Port of Port Townsend Director Larry Crockett, don’t participate in the annual ritual.
“I do not make resolutions,” he said.
“Why disappoint myself?”
Quilcene activist Kit Kittredge has large goals for the new year.
“I expect to be more responsible in communicating with people,” said Kittredge, who was among the 27 activists on a “Freedom Flotilla” detained by Israeli forces in November as they sailed to Gaza to deliver medical supplies and letters of support.
“That includes listening better, responding patiently and clearly, and trying to understand folks so that I may better deliver my own information and viewpoint so that we move forward in creating a compassionate, peaceful planet,” Kittredge said.
Chimacum High School Principal Whitney Meissner said her most important job is “as the mother of my two children, Jack and Molly, and that I am first and foremost responsible for their moral, physical and emotional health, and that playfulness is usually the key to achieving all three.”
Port Townsend Marketing Director Christina Pivarnik said she hopes to channel creativity and collaboration to bring more people to the area during the tourism “shoulder season” (October through April) “so that our entrepreneurial, local businesses can thrive year around.”
Port Townsend Main Street Executive Director Mari Mullen wants to do more of what she enjoyed in 2011.
“I am going to seek more activities that feed my soul,” she said.
“I plan to see a lot of movies in town, check out more local music and walk to work often.”
Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Scott Rosekrans hopes to refine the pretrial diversion program and further explore the establishment of a mental health court in Jefferson County.
Civil Deputy Prosecutor David Alvarez resolved to “be more patient” in the coming year.
Jefferson County Superior Court Clerk Ruth Gordon wants to improve the working conditions in her office so her staff is more comfortable.
Off the job, she hopes to cook more meals and learn how to “slow cook” instead of having Cheerios for dinner.
Puget Sound Energy’s Tim Caldwell hopes to “continue to be healthy and happy and do my thing in Port Townsend” — and spend more time on the golf course.
“I don’t know if I can increase my score, but spending more time on the golf course is something I can achieve,” he said.
This goal is shared by Port Townsend Deputy Mayor George Randels, who was not re-elected this year.
Randels resolved “to work assiduously in 2012 on lowering my golf score.”
Laurie Medlicott, who is also leaving the council, said she is looking forward to being a “plain old citizen,” or “POC,” and enjoy one privilege that has been denied her.
“I can’t wait for 2012 because I’ll be able to watch Monday Night Football, which I haven’t been able to do for eight years,” since the Port Townsend City Council meets Monday nights.
Jefferson County Commissioner Phil Johnson said he wants to implement a shoreline management plan that does not create a risk for native-run salmon, ending an impasse that began in February when the state Department of Ecology ruled that the county could not forbid net pen fisheries.
Johnson also hopes to impose a severance fee for sand and gravel excavated in Jefferson County by out-of-county corporations.
“The rock is taken from here into Kitsap County, and the taxes go there,” he said.
“Kitsap gets the tax revenue, and all we have is a hole in the ground.”
County Commissioner David Sullivan said: “My daily resolution is to remember to be kind.
“This year, I will remain open to new ways of doing things.”
Port Townsend Library Executive Director Theresa Percy said she hopes for further success with the library’s job center, provide the best library services during relocation, complete the private part of the library capital campaign and make the library “future-ready.”
“Personally, I hope to ride my Arabian mare into the sunset as much as possible,” she said.
East Jefferson Fire-Rescue Chief Gordon Pomeroy expects to be able to break ground on a replacement for the fire station in Chimacum, funded through a levy lid lift voters approved in April 2010, in the spring and have it ready for new fire engines in the late fall.
Barney Burke, public utility district commissioner and a volunteer with KPTZ 91.9 FM, said his 2012 resolutions are only extensions of those for 2011: launching the PUD’s electrical power utility and the radio station.
“Thanks to the vision and hard work of many people, KPTZ has been on the air for seven months, and the power utility is in the home stretch,” he said.
Tim Lawson, executive director of the Port Townsend School of Woodworking and Preservation Trades, said he hopes to promote local wood — in a campaign similar to that for local food consumption — for woodworkers, forest owners and small mills in the area.
He also wants to strengthen the school’s scholarship program for young people and veterans in the Woodworking and Furniture Making programs and develop and run a veterans training program for the exterior restoration of Building 202 at Fort Worden.
Dos Okies owner Larry Dennison, a former county commissioner, took a fresh look at an old prophecy.
“2012 is coming, and we know what that means in the Mayan calendar,” he said.
“But maybe we’ll find out that the Mayans really knew something, and 2012 will be a time of positive change.”
He also has an optimistic prediction about his business, saying, “Dos Okies will live to see another year because we are too dumb to fail.”
The urge to try something new was also a common goal, as demonstrated by 12-year-old Port Townsend journalist Brennan LaBrie.
“I’m going to focus on getting rid of my fears and would like to try things that I’ve never done before — like trying a new instrument, a new sport or some brand-new experience,” he said.
Team Jefferson’s Bill Wise, who spends much of the year explaining complex business problems, expressed his New Year’s resolution poetically in an email:
“Celebrate midstream in this uncertain torrent/Let go/Screaming across the banks/of extreme is futile/May I find my center/
“May we find our center.”
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
