After serving 16 years as a Bellevue city councilman — 12 of those as a mayor chosen by his peers — Cary Bozeman takes office as Mayor of Bremerton on January 1. He intends to hit the ground running.

Bozeman came to Bremerton seven years ago and has headed up the Olympic College Foundation since arriving. His main accomplishment has been rebuilding the library destroyed in a winter snowstorm several years ago. The Bellevue connection proved its value by attracting outside money as Bozeman hauled in $100,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The major theme of his election campaign — was change — change in attitude, change in direction, and above all, a change in the way the city does business. “The last two mayors didn’t even have a computer in their office,” he said in astonishment.
I sat down with “Boze,” as he’s known to friends, to find out just what he has planned. It was obvious from the outset he plans to run the city like a business. “Bremerton is a $75 million dollar a year municipal corporation,” he remarked. “It’s time we ran it like one.”

Bozeman sounds like a new CEO tasked with bringing the company back into the black, and that’s how he’s approaching the mayor’s job. He says he will install a corporate-type philosophy that includes being active in municipal activities around the state.

“The first order of business is to put together a transition team that will remain a permanent part of my advisory team,” He said. “A brain trust for the city if you will.” According to the new mayor, it will be made up of people from both within and outside of the city.

“Marketing will be a big push of ours,” Bozeman said right away. “I’m bringing in a friend of mine, Doug Smidtz, who is the city manager of Lake Oswego, Oregon, to help. He’s also the former city manager of Carmel and has 35 years of experience doing this.”

Local business leaders Eric Anderson, Steve Rice, Gary Sexton, Linda Niebanck, Barbara Stephenson, James Robinson, Joe Murphy, Rich Rucker, Yong Kang, Carol Blakley, and advertising whiz Bill Hoke will be part of the team as will former county auditor and Bremerton City Council member Sherril Huff-Menees, along with former Bellevue parks director Lee Springate, now a private consultant to municipalities on park and recreation issues.

He also stressed that he didn’t want the department heads and other city employees to feel threatened. “I’m looking for people with ideas of how we might do things differently. If there’s a better way to do it, we want to explore that.”

Bozeman wants the city departments talking to each other and for the outside world to be part of the decision-making process. “If we’re going to engage the public back into government, we have to do that. I want a team that will bring us expertise and perspective from the outside. We also want to access the people power of PSNS. We want to see how they can interface with the city and act as advisors.”

Job One is changing the city’s image. “We’re going to work hard at changing our image, how we deal with business and how we deal with people.” he said. He pointed to the fact the city has no standardized graphics package as a typical example of the image problem. And, what is used — colors, styles, etc., is not only inconsistent, but is extremely outdated. In any business, graphics play a key role in portraying the image and one of the first orders of business will be to update and standardize all city collateral to 21st century standards.

“We’re going to change how we appear to the outside world. We want Bremerton viewed as progressive, creative and willing to try new things. That’s the image we want to have and that’s how we want to operate.”

Bozeman says he also wants to visually upgrade 4th street. “The entrance to city hall is not friendly. Making it friendly is important for the self esteem of the people that work there.”

Also high on Bozeman’s list is creating a new, productive, relationship between the mayor’s office, the city council and the department heads. “We want to work problems out before they get to the city council,” he stated. “I’m not going to present a proposal to the council that’s not going to fly. That’s not only non-productive, it’s insulting and a waste of everyone’s time.”

In keeping with the corporate culture he wants to establish, the new mayor sees strategic planning as crucial. “We need a three year action plan. There is no plan at all now. We’ll have a time frame for projects, a budget, and know our outcome. I want to do that and have the public hold us accountable.” He added emphatically, “I don’t see brainstorming and planning as an extracurricular activity. Companies like Microsoft see this as part of their workday and that’s what I want us to do.”

Bozeman believes there are three major issues facing the city. “But I don’t think of them as problems,” he chuckles.

“Economic development is our number one priority. We can no longer depend on the individual property owner to pick up the tab for city services. We need to bring new business in here. If we don’t, nothing else is going to work because we won’t have the money.”

He doesn’t seem worried about the impact of I-747 either. “I’m not concerned with the one percent lid imposed by I-747 because we’ve been overtaxing people here for too long. My goal is bring down the property tax rate in the city.” Bozeman says he won’t feel successful unless he brings down tax rates. He intends to do that using what he termed tax balance, with the difference being funded by tax-paying businesses that aren’t located in Bremerton now.

He doesn’t like the location of the proposed governmental center and readily acknowledges problems with parking. However, he admits the project is probably past the point of no return and although it has some drawbacks, overall it’s a positive for Bremerton

Bozeman sees the PSNS desire to acquire additional downtown property as a win-win situation and says he’d like to see this project on the fast track. “It creates an opportunity for a new partnership,” he said. “The Navy will have funding to do the project right. The loss in revenue won’t be that much, and a more attractive facade will improve the value of surrounding properties. A greenbelt will make a nice connection to ferries.”

He’s also in favor of the proposed conference center and hotel downtown. “How to pay for it is the problem, “ he admitted. “We have to figure out how to make it pencil.”

Bozeman’s enthusiasm is contagious. People are beginning to get excited about the possibilities for Bremerton. “We have a lot of opportunities in front of us,” says the new mayor. “If we can make any of these work, then we’ll have a major impact and begin the revitalization of downtown.”

But perhaps the most telling sign that Bozeman will preside over major change in Bremerton is the fact that for the first time in recent memory, there is active — but very quiet — speculation in the real estate market going on there.

“One good thing done at a time is what creates the momentum for change. When people see things happening, it creates excitement and attracts investment — and people want to be part of the action.”

Stay tuned. With a dynamic new mayor, it appears the stage is set for the action to finally begin in Bremerton.