What's the thinking behind this and that?

As you read the Independent twice a week, do you often, like me, stop and try and figure out the motivations of the people involved in the news stories you’re reading?

For example, what was South Kitsap Parks and Recreation District Board Chair Larry Walker thinking when he, under the sponsorship of 26th District Rep. Pat Lantz of Gig Harbor, tried to make it legal for the Kitsap County Board of Commissioners to write off the Park District’s debt?

The so-called “debt-forgiveness bill” died in Olympia two weeks ago.

What happened was that the Parks District racked up approximately $50,000 in election debt. The Parks District collects no taxes.

So how to pay the debt?

Let’s just forgive and forget about it was Walker’s bright idea.

Why should the debt be forgiven?

Do you agree? Or do you think Parks should pay its debts?

Oh, but I forgot. We live in a county within a country which is now trillions — that’s right, trillions — of dollars, in the red.

Hey, just cut Social Security and Medicare nationally, and locally, close the parks for a day or two every week.

Who uses them anyway, other than meth dealers and teenagers?

n Now, even local teenagers are telling city officials what downtown Port Orchard needs to revitalize itself. Some of the kids quoted in the Independent said downtown smells like “an old carpet.”

Everyone, even the kids, is so polite when they discuss this long-time ring around South Kitsap’s business neck.

Downtown looks fine. And the healthy businesses down there smell OK, too.

What’s needed are more businesses people want to shop in.

For capitalism to work, even the semi-cannibalistic version we’re now slaving under, businesses, food establishments, and entertainment centers have to offer something the spending public is interested in.

Otherwise, those retailers, restaurants and entertainment centers languish.

I like antiques too, but c’mon. A paint job ain’t gonna be enough. Not a whitewash, neither.

n As someone who has loved playing golf at McCormick Woods, although those behind me as I hack away are probably less thrilled, I applaud attempts by Fire District 7 to seek more than one way in and out of the place.

The entrance to McCormick off Old Clifton Road is miles from a fire station and anything else.

An access road would cut down on emergency response times. Do it.

n Let’s hope the county’s decade of stalling is finally over and Kitsap officials sit down with the city of Port Orchard and plan the future of the south county’s rural areas in a timely manner.

This, the simple planning, has been put off for years. And while those we elect to serve us avoid even discussions, the former rural areas of the county grow more and more cluttered with random, often junky, growth.

Let’s keep Kitsap semi-rural and at least semi-beautiful and semi-organized. This sitdown between the county and the city should have taken place long ago. Pressure Commissioners Angel, Lent and Endresen to get it done and get it done this year.

n Finally, I don’t know if I ever agreed with state Rep. Lois McMahan of Olalla about anything. But I am 200 percent behind the bill she recently proposed down in Olympia to stiffen sentences for child molesters.

Anyone who reads the Independent must have figured out by now that child molestation, within and without families in the area, is a growing, frightening problem.

Hats off to McMahan for thinking more about the victims than those who victimize. The only rider I would have added to McMahan’s proposal, which would require a minimum 10-year sentence for the worst (Level A) offenders, a minimum five years behind bars for Level B offenders, and a minimum three years incarcerated for Level C offenders, would be a minimum of 15 years for anyone convicted of sexual abuse or child molestation who was in a position of trust and authority with our children —cops, teachers, counselors, ministers and Scout leaders.

Oh yeah, and I wouldn’t allow those authorized molesters to serve one day of their sentences in a protected-custody arrangement. Thrown them into the general population and let Darwinism have its say.

Make victims of the victimizers of our children. That would make a nice bumper sticker.

Dennis Wilken is a former Port Orchard Independent.

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