2009 VISION 2040 Award from Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) for: Kitsap Telework Pilot Project conducted for the State Legislature/
Senate Transportation Committee

Greater Poulsbo Chamber Community Builder Award 2001-2002 for ‘Saving Olympic College Poulsbo’

Kitsap Regional Economic Development Council : Community Support Award 2002

Board of Directors position #12, Association of
Washington Cities 2008 – present

Legislative Appointee - High Speed Internet Strategy
Working Group, Olympia

Poulsbo Planning Commission

Olympic College NK Advisory Board

Kitsap Regional Economic Development Board

-Chaired Regional Telecommunications Committee

-Co-Chairing KRCC Broadband Task Force

Kitsap Base Reduction & Closure Committee (BRAC)

Protecting our environment and investing in families while lessening our dependence on fossil fuels-

Let's work together!

 

My Record:

Completing my third consecutive term in office, I can point to above all else a collegial and inclusive political philosophy that allows me to bring diverse people and ideas together to solve problems at the city, county and regional level.

From organizing the Council Committee form of governance in 1998, based on my earlier experience as a municipal official in Montana in the 1970’s and 80’s, to securing the highest small city rating in the state of Washington financially in 2008 - - a ‘AA’ rating from Standard & Poor’s in New York City - - based in part on my conservative over-two-decades working experience in the private sector financial industry, mine is a record of measurable achievement.

I am most proud of working closely with then-Senate Majority Whip Betti Sheldon (D.-Bremerton) in 2001 to save the $13 million in state capital funding that allowed Olympic College to build our fantastic Poulsbo campus, providing educational and job opportunities for our young people and re-training for those of us faced with economic dislocation alike. The Greater Poulsbo Chamber of Commerce award for this work hangs on my office wall to this day.

In 2008 and 2009, working to keep our City Council and Mayor in close negotiation with the officers and Board of Harrison Medical Center, I was instrumental in landing in Poulsbo the newest campus for our county’s largest private employer and medical provider - - Harrison Hospital - - the $30 million Oncology Center project for our three-county western Washington region, along with Prompt & Urgent Care facilities. The construction of these important health-care centers will create jobs in both the short-term and for the long-term, turning Poulsbo into a regional medical hub along our busy Highway 305 corridor, with easy access to folks from throughout the peninsula’s area in need of life-saving health care. The boost the job relocations and new job creation both will provide our North Kitsap communities is essential to stabilizing home values for all of us in the face of this intractable recession.

The Future:

Since ‘day-one’ back in 1997 when first elected to City Council, I have dedicated myself to emerging technologies, specifically first the essential fiber-optic telecommunications infrastructure we so sorely lacked at that time - - that forced/forces so many of us to go to jobs in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties in long exhaust-choked lines on ferries and bridges - - so as to begin to offset the need for more environmentally degrading and taxpayer-costly physical transportation solutions to our commuting woes.

With the construction complete of our 120 mile fiber-optic backbone running throughout Kitsap County in 2004, efforts could be redirected to the ‘applications’ of advanced telecommunications, namely telecommuting, distance-learning and e-medicine for creating and retaining jobs right here in our own communities. Not only good for our pocket-books, the environment and diversifying our tax base, most importantly it allows families of people to work, go to school and shop in our own towns!

Poulsbo is at the forefront of this effort in the State, with more to gain or lose as a transportation hub at the crossroads of western Washington than almost any other community. Recognized by the Legislature and funded to carry out the Telework Pilot Project in part, we have been recently joined by Microsoft Corporation and fifty of their workers to do their jobs from this side of the water. The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) of over eighty city and county governments of the Puget Sound awarded their prestigious Vision 2040 Award to us for these efforts this spring, something all of us should be justifiably proud of.

Careful growth planning coupled with smart jobs and sensitive environmental stewardship is the formula for our future, together. I have been honored and gratified to have been selected to serve our community these last 12 years: I ask for your continued vote of confidence in returning me to the Poulsbo City Council in 2009.

Thank You!

Ed Stern

www.edstern.com

 

We as a campaign are committed to not cluttering the built and natural environment with intrusive campaign signs. Instead, to ‘put my money where my mouth is’, we are utilizing the internet as an example of not only how a campaign can be run effectively and thoughtfully in the 21st century, but an example for all of Kitsap County of the use of high-speed broadband as an alternative for ‘getting to work’! If you believe as we do in both our positions for the community, and this approach to campaigning, WE NEED YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT. Please click on the Contribution link, and help us bring Poulsbo and Kitsap County into the 21st century… and thank you!