Local News for 6/17/22
Local News for 6/16/22
KPTZ Receives JCPH Hero Award!
KPTZ is thrilled to announce that the station has been named the recipient of a Public Health Hero Award! In celebration of National Public Health Week, observed at the beginning of April each year, Jefferson County Public Health focused on the theme: Public Health is Where you Are. Nominations were solicited from the public across seven different categories, and KPTZ was selected to receive the award in the category, “Community: Collaborations and Resilience.” Each Public Health Hero Award category recognizes the different ways health, well-being, and safety have been promoted by individuals and groups across Jefferson County.
KPTZ’s receipt of this award is due, in large part, to our priority commitment to connecting the community with the latest COVID-19 information and updates. Through live broadcasts of the Public Health briefings by Dr. Alison Berry and Willie Bence at the Board of County Commissioners weekly meetings, KPTZ has given our listeners an avenue through which to submit and have their COVID-19 questions answered, ever since April of 2020.
KPTZ Community Affairs Lead Chris Bricker will accept the award on behalf of the station at the virtual awards ceremony on Thursday, June 16, during the Jefferson County Board of Health monthly meeting, from 2:30-4:30pm. The public may attend via Zoom at https://www.co.jefferson.wa.us/545/Board-of-Health where the meeting agenda is published.
Local News for 6/15/22
June 16-30 Programming Highlights
For a compendium of upcoming featured programs, check out Spotlight for June 16-30. Many of our program hosts provide specifics about what’s planned for the second half of June. If you’re not already a Spotlight subscriber, you’re invited to join our Mailing List. See KPTZ’s current Weekly On-Air Schedule and Daily Program Schedule.
Local News for 6/14/22
#202 Amanda Milholland, Farmers Market Director
(Airdate: June 14, 2022) Maryanne McNellis interviews Amanda Milholland, director of both the Port Townsend and Chimacum Farmers Markets. Amanda’s a local girl with a passion for food. During her time with the Peace Corp in Uganda she learned the value of knowing just where her food was grown. In recent years, more and more people are wanting to know just how their meat, dairy, or produce is grown. The whole “farm to table” movement is based on that premise. Like all businesses, the farmers markets were impacted by the pandemic. But because they are considered “essential businesses” the time when they were actually shut down was fairly brief. Early on, traffic and revenue shrunk to about half of pre-pandemic levels. Food was still sold but popular events like cooking demonstrations and live music were cancelled for much of the first two years of the pandemic. But right now things are looking bright for the 2022 season. The number of vendors is back to pre-pandemic levels. Amanda is excited to report that music, cooking, and even story time for the kids are back this year. It’s the market’s 30th anniversary and everyone wants to celebrate this hometown treasure.
KPTZ Names First Paid News Producer
In a move aimed at building upon the reputation KPTZ has earned as a dependable source of first-hand community news, this local noncommercial community radio station has recently chosen station volunteer Jim Burke to fill the newly created position of KPTZ News Producer.
Longtime volunteer KPTZ News Director Steve Evans openly celebrated the hire. “This is a move that has really been too long in coming,” he said. “In my view, the heart of community radio is the way it brings the audience into direct contact with the events and movers and shakers in our region, and although it has been fun being the volunteer leader of volunteer producers in that effort for all this time, we really need a professional staffer for our service to the community to be sustainable and truly reliable.”
At the same time, there will always be an essential place for volunteers to fill out the news and community affairs programming at the station. Evans pointed to the amazing work of volunteers like Charlie Bermant, who in 2018 led the resurrection of daily local newscasts (a service that had died out years earlier), enlisting the help of Lily Haight and Diane Urbani de la Paz. That lineup more recently has evolved to newscasts by Simon Jaynes / Thursday, Casey Dolan / Wednesday, Ann Katzenbach / Friday, and, of course, Jim Burke / Tuesday — not to mention the many other dedicated volunteer producers of KPTZ’s top-notch local community affairs programs such as Compass, Everybody Can, Brewocracy Now, Our Town, Nature Now, Community Tides, Booklovers’ Café, and more.
“What a great time to be joining the news staff at KPTZ,” said Burke of his new job. “As News Producer, I look forward to growing our team of amazing volunteers, expanding our news programming to reflect the hopes and concerns of our vibrant community, and making the move to our new station in Fort Worden’s Makers Square.”
“The hire of Jim Burke assures that KPTZ is on track toward fulfilling a long-held organizational goal, which is to employ a qualified news reporter for us to assure excellent and consistent local news coverage,” said KPTZ General Manager Kate Ingram, who also said the station’s goal is to expand the role to a full time position, once the requisite additional budget funding is secured.
KPTZ’s full program lineup is available at 91.9FM, and for live streaming here on the KPTZ.org website. All of the community affairs programming is also archived on the website as podcasts.
County Public Health Report – 6/13/22
The following is a summary of the presentation during the Public Health briefings at this week’s Board of County Commissioners meeting made by Jefferson and Clallam County Public Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry. The summary below was provided by and used with the permission of Jefferson County Government.
In her weekly address to Commissioners, County Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry said there is a “plateauing of our cases overall and there isn’t the rise in hospitalizations that’s been seen in other parts of the country.” This low rate is consistent with all of the top four vaccinated counties in the state—that includes Jefferson and Clallam. Dr. Berry said the primary driver of our low hospitalizations is how vaccinated and boosted we are as a community. “If you are not vaccinated, we are still seeing severe disease and we are seeing death,” she said. Our case rates have risen slowly over the past week (to 873/100,000) but indicators point to a slowing of that rise. “I do think we are moving into a different phase of this response, where we will likely still see transmission in our community but we’re less likely to see severe disease,” Dr. Berry noted. “We have the tools we need to prevent severe disease due to COVID-19.” Dr. Berry said to continue to protect yourselves by wearing a mask in indoor settings and getting vaccinated and boosted.
Submit your Public Health questions to Dr. Allison Berry and to Willie Bence by emailing [email protected]. Note: The weekly deadline for these to be submitted is on Fridays at noon, to be answered at the following Monday’s BOCC meeting.
Nature Now #571 Dune Restoration, part 1
(Airdate: June 13, 2022) Join host Debaran Kelso on a field trip to the sandy shores of Fort Worden! Dr. Fred Sharpe is our guest to speak about dune restoration in this area and in other locations on the Olympic Peninsula (Part 1 of a two part program).
