North Kitsap Beat

I was in downtown Poulsbo today and noticed the painters on First Lutheran Church, which overlooks the town. They expect to be done Friday. 

I’m on vacation all week, so if anything urgent comes up, please contact local news editor David Nelson at dnelson@kitsapsun.com or (360) 415-2679.

I’ve written a story about a back and forth debate in recent months about the pace of development in Poulsbo.

At the bottom, I referenced people here to the blog to see the documents I was working from.

If you’d like to peruse the documents Jan Wold has provided the city, click HERE and HERE.

To read the city’s letter in response, click HERE.

(NOTE: All of the files have been converted to PDFs)

A helpful concession from a transit agency, some new asphalt and a healthy dose of monitoring have led a Poulsbo councilwoman to drop a plan to ask the state to coordinate traffic lights along Highway 305.

“In order to coordinate lights, you can’t have Opticoms,” Poulsbo Councilwoman Becky Erickson said. “It basically defeats the purpose.”

No, as you or your 10-year-old might be thinking, Opticoms are not Transformers characters. (A comprehensive description of how they work on emergency vehicles is HERE. They work a little differently for buses.)

They’re the mechanisms on fire trucks, ambulances and buses that trigger the lights as they approach – either extending a green or cutting short a red. The ones on buses in Poulsbo are seeing a change.

Kitsap Transit service director John Clauson said his agency has asked bus drivers not to flip the switch on their Opticoms in Poulsbo to help maintain light coordination through town.
Erickson had been leading an effort to compel the state Department of Transportation to coordinate the lights between Poulsbo and the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal as a low-cost way to reduce congestion.

She’d sought resolutions affirming the request from the Poulsbo, Bainbridge and Suquamish Tribe governing bodies, but has put the brakes on that effort after a recent meeting between state and local officials.

The state and tribe have agreed to retime the light at the Clearwater Casino, DOT will coordinate the lights in Poulsbo, and Kitsap Transit won’t use the Opticoms. (Emergency vehicles will.)

Did the new HOV lanes in Poulsbo have anything to do with the Opticom decision?
“That’s exactly it,” Clauson said. “The HOV lanes have made it much easier for us to maintain our schedules.”

Kitsap Transit will keep an eye on the schedules in Poulsbo to make sure buses are still on time, and may have to re-evaluate the practice in the future.

Erickson said she, too, will monitor how traffic does on Highway 305.

“I’m not giving this up,” she said.

A pledge drive aimed at Kitsap’s well heeled is underway, with the goal of keeping the Poulsbo Marine Science Center afloat this fall.

It’s come about because of a win/lose situation during last year’s Legislative session.

The center got money to build a floating classroom, where they hope to teach kids from 14 school districts around the region. But when last minute trimmings hit the budget process, $100,000 to operate the center was cut.

The following is from a letter by Poulsbo Mayor Kathryn Quade to one of the prospective donors:

In the last legislative session, the Marine Science Center lost $100,000 in funding. This funding was necessary to keep the Center in operation and complete its mission of marine education. At the present, the Marine Science Center has contracts with 14 different school districts to present its curriculum to young children fostering understanding and appreciation of the ecology of Liberty Bay and the marine environment. These contracts are now in jeopardy. With the loss of funding, this program cannot continue.

Now, the center’s non-profit foundation is working to secure $5,000 donations from a select group of Kitsap residents through August 30.

Poulsbo Councilwoman Becky Erickson said about $30,000 has been raised so far.

If the don’t raise $100,000, they don’t collect.

Also leading the drive, according to Quade’s letter, are Poulsbo Marine Science Foundation members Bill Austin and Bruce Harlow, and Rep. Sherry Appleton. (Appleton said in a phone conversation that she isn’t soliciting money to avoid confusion because she is also in the middle of a campaign for her legislative seat.)

The fact that the center is asking for money isn’t surprising. Operating costs – to mean the day to day costs to run a program/building – are what were, and have been, the crux of the issue. And it’s not just the Marine Science Center asking for money.

North Kitsap has plenty of other examples. People are fundraising, with about $25,000 in hand at last count, to save the North Kitsap Community Pool, folks in Kingston have been working for years to find money to build a new community center/library/senior housing project and eventually, it could be that a large regional trails proposal could come together, requiring public financing to maintain the system.

It’s all pointing toward the formation of a regional parks district. (The term “metropolitan parks district” has been used, but I have a hard time seeing North Kitsap as a metropolitan area.)

The major unknowns are: What would it fund, and for how much? How long would it take to become a ballot initiative? Would people vote for it? And if it takes years to come to the voters, what will happen to all of these projects in the meantime?

The whole idea of a soccer stadium in Poulsbo had been rattling around for a while, but earlier this week Tracyton-based developer Robin Waite confirmed he’s not looking at Poulsbo any longer.

The “for a while” part of the previous sentence shows I certainly could have begun asking questions sooner.

I like to try and get documents whenever possible – sometimes they’re more forthright, comprehensive and revealing than conversations – so I asked for what I thought was an e-mail from Waite to the city about pulling the plug. Turns out it was a letter, which you can read HERE.[PDF]

The bottom line? The letter is short and cordial. The most revealing thing is the date at the top. June 23, 2008.

When I talked with Waite, he said he didn’t want to seem evasive by not revealing his new plans, but hoped to have more details in two to four weeks.

Josh Farley, our cops and courts reporter, wrote an entry today about a letter Poulsbo Police Chief Dennis Swiney wrote [PDF] to North Kitsap School Board member Tom Anderson about an objection to a proposal to get rid of school resource officers. 

That issue came up last Thursday during the board meeting.

I’d been hearing rumors for a while, and talked today with Robin Waite, who wants to bring a minor-league professional soccer club to Kitsap County. 

He’d been looking at building a 6,000 seat stadium in Poulsbo, but today said he’s looking elsewhere in Kitsap. 

Where, he wouldn’t say. What do you think about the stadium proposal moving out of Poulsbo?

Just wanted to give everyone the heads up that the North Kitsap Beat blog has now moved over to our new content management system (Moveable Type to WordPress.) I hope for most of you that means nothing more than changing your bookmarks: 

http://pugetsoundblogs.com/nkbeat/

If you want to subscribe to the RSS feed, go here: 

http://feeds.feedburner.com/NorthKitsapBeat

This map might be the best way to explain why “annexation” has been a buzz word in Poulsbo. I created it to show the city’s expansion from 2003 to today. The red area is the Urban Growth Area. The blue is the city boundary. The blue expansion between the two is because of annexations. (Sorry, I accidentally chopped bits from the top and bottom of the map.)

On Wednesday night, the Poulsbo City Council will likely have a long discussion on proposed changes to the way it annexes land. If you’re a policy wonk it should be interesting.

But the real undercurrent is what’s going to happen with the city’s large chunk of Urban Growth Area on the west side – that big red chuck on the left in the 2008 map. On one hand you’ve got people there from two areas who’d requested to be annexed, and were denied. (The city wants to annex the whole area so it can better install roads and sewers.) On the other, you’ve got some who don’t want to be annexed, and believe the city doesn’t and/or shouldn’t take in the area because of environmental/water/cost issues. It’s complicated.

If you want to dig into the details of the annexation policy changes, and look at some of the other concerns people raised about development, head HERE[PDF].