Co-hosts City Manager John Mauro and Jim Burke welcome Rita Hubbard and talk about all things about The 2023 Rhody Festival coming up May 17 through May 21. They talk a bit about KPTZ’s 12th birthday too.

Today, co-hosts John Mauro and Jim Burke (in for Taylor Clark in May) welcome Shelly Leavens,
the NEW Communications and Marketing Manager for the City Of Port Townsend. They discussed how Shelly came to work for the City Of Port Townsend (her first day was today!) and a few other topics, like the Mountain View Pool replacement planning.

Guests on Brewocracy Now included Officer Kamal Sharif of the Port Townsend Police department, and Suzie Haynes (she is a personal trainer, and her business is called “S cubed” – S3). They were on to talk about the upcoming Bike Rodeo to help teach kids (and adults) about how to ride bikes safely. The Rodeo takes place on May 6 at Blue Heron School, from 8am to 4pm. We also discussed last night’s open house about the golf course, and tonight’s open house (in Chimacum) about the pool.  Check the cityofpt.us web page for a list of upcoming events like this.  There are lots of opportunities to provide input. John Mauro also gave us an overview of the new Port Townsend Poet Laureate program. Finally, we discussed once again John’s recent sojourn to the Boston Marathon where he ran consistent 6:40/mile splits and finished in under 3 hours. Congratulations are in order.

Mayor David Faber joined co-hosts Jim Burke and John Mauro, they talked about the successful, recent Connectivity Fair and Transportation Fair. Other topics were the second Golf Course Open House coming up at Fort Worden Commons on Wednesday, April 26 at 5pm, and the Healthier Together Pool open house on April 27 at Chimacum High School. Mayor Faber reminded us that candidates for City Council need to file between May 15 and May 19. And John teased that the City of PT has hired a new Communications and Marketing Manager to be announced on Friday April 21.

Guests were Dan Burden, internationally recognized proponent for walkable cities, and Port Townsend Assistant City Engineer Jeff Kostechka, a new member of Port Townsend’s professional staff who is also studying in the UW Sustainable Transportation Graduate Program. We talked about transportation policy engineering and how we might continue to make Port Townsend a ‘fifteen-minute city’ for walking and biking. This all leads up to the “Moving in the Right Direction” conference, Friday April 14. More information on the conference (which is open to the public) may be found here.

Taylor Clark and Port Townsend City Manager John Mauro talked about a wide variety of topics, including the new 7th Haven Apartments, the importance of federal funding for this sort of project, the upcoming meeting of the Financial Sustainability task force, the importance community members running of public office or otherwise getting involved in advisory boards and community groups. It takes a village.

Brewocracy Now on March 30 featured a grab bag of different topics.  Co-host Taylor Clark talked to John Mauro about recently passed changes supporting housing, and we looked towards what will be happening to support housing going forward.  John talked about The Community Read event last Tuesday and an upcoming meeting in Chimacum about the pool.  John asked that if people have time, could they please fill out the Pool Survey (linked here) which closes Friday, March 31 at 5pm.  We also heard some pending budget items at the state level that might possibly benefit Port Townsend, and then, sadly, we ran out of time.  

KPTZ News Producer Jim Burke sat in for Taylor Clark this week and with his co-host, City Manager John Mauro, spoke with Planning and Community Development Director Emma Bolin and Mayor David Faber. They discussed:

• What happened at council Monday, what it means, and what to expect next Monday.
• How’s it is part of the City’s bigger picture housing strategy.
• And, if time allows: what’s next?

John and Taylor’s guests today were Melody Sky Weaver from the Port Townsend Library and Monique Gray Smith, who did the young adult adaptation of Braiding Sweetgrass which the Port Townsend community read this month. We had a very soulful conversation that is hard to characterize here. Just listen! And read!

Co-host John Mauro is back from his break and reflects on what that meant for him as well as the excellent work of the city leadership team while he was gone.  We discussed city efforts to pay off some of our debt and why that is important.  John also talked about efforts by the city to coordinate the replacement of our pool including a planned public meeting “Healthier Together” that is coming up at the Fort Worden commons. on March 14.  Mark your calendars! (Note: Our planned guest, Monique Gray Smith was delayed due to travel problems and will be joining us next week)