The "realignment of Hood Canal Drive" currently occurring in Shorewood involves raising a big culvert and the road over it. Announced in December 2006, the work is being done 18 months later. It will serve a portion of Hansville's 2093 people. Budgeted at $625,000, the actual cost is now $1.5 million.
Meanwhile, half of Seabeck's population of 5,000 people have been stranded one to three days per year for 151 years when a heavily trafficked bridge is flooded. If Seabeckers need to go to a job, buy groceries, or need an ambulance, they have to drive a ten mile detour, which may be open if it hasn't suffered another landslide (at least one per year). The county finally admitted Seabeck had a problem in 2004 and scheduled bridge-and-culvert raising for 2007. It's 2008 and it still hasn't happened.
So we have to ask: How did a small population in Hansville get $1.5 million for road work they didn't HAVE to have, and get it so fast, while much larger Seabeck hasn't gotten the same road repair for 151 years? Could it be that the founder of GHAAC became the lead Commissioner of Kitsap County?
Friday, August 8, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
The Bumps Weren't an End, They Were the Beginning
The Hansville Log reports that a Cross-Connector Road Feasibility Study Committee is being formed under Gerry Porter (638-1150). Such a road is attractive to bumpside people to divert traffic away from their houses, and it appeals to commuters weary of the bumps.
Old-time residents say that the county spent over a million dollars on a feasibility study in the '90s. The upshot was that it would devastate the last wild animal habitat in the north of the peninsula, it would create major water runoff problems, and it would cost a phenomenal amount---and the newspaper says the cost of asphalt will quadruple this year.
Based on the petitions for and against the bumps, 88% of Hansville wants the bumps removed and our arterial roads returned to arterial speed limits. That wouild solve the commute problems for 88% of Hansville, and it would cost very little compared to building a whole new road.
My neighbor was recently coming home on Twin Spits by the grocery and came up on a couple walking along their road. The car couldn't cross into the oncoming lane, so the car proceeded forward at a crawl. The lady sidestepped onto the wide shoulder there but the man insisted on walking in the road. As he walked past the barely-moving car, he smacked it repeatedly with a Steve Bauer election sign on a stick.
Notice a pattern here? The whiners on Twin Spits and Cliffside so screwed up our ride in and out of Hansville, and have so discouraged our hopes of majority rule returning the roads to us as they once were, that we're crazy enough to consider building a new road that avoids the bumps, leaves the whiners' roads empty for themselves only, and they do it all on the taxpayers' millions.
Old-time residents say that the county spent over a million dollars on a feasibility study in the '90s. The upshot was that it would devastate the last wild animal habitat in the north of the peninsula, it would create major water runoff problems, and it would cost a phenomenal amount---and the newspaper says the cost of asphalt will quadruple this year.
Based on the petitions for and against the bumps, 88% of Hansville wants the bumps removed and our arterial roads returned to arterial speed limits. That wouild solve the commute problems for 88% of Hansville, and it would cost very little compared to building a whole new road.
My neighbor was recently coming home on Twin Spits by the grocery and came up on a couple walking along their road. The car couldn't cross into the oncoming lane, so the car proceeded forward at a crawl. The lady sidestepped onto the wide shoulder there but the man insisted on walking in the road. As he walked past the barely-moving car, he smacked it repeatedly with a Steve Bauer election sign on a stick.
Notice a pattern here? The whiners on Twin Spits and Cliffside so screwed up our ride in and out of Hansville, and have so discouraged our hopes of majority rule returning the roads to us as they once were, that we're crazy enough to consider building a new road that avoids the bumps, leaves the whiners' roads empty for themselves only, and they do it all on the taxpayers' millions.
Hey Steve - Whose Laptop Was That ???
You would think a simple question posed to your local Commissioner would receive a simple and straightforward response. But not in Hansville - not when it is a question to Steve Bauer about the speed bump propaganda circus that he has been promoting for the last 8 months.
At the big April 23 meeting in Hansville, Bauer was sitting by the laptop computer being used by the pro-bump group to make their sales pitch, with Powerpoint slides, colorful charts, etc. When it had a "system hang" and had to be re-booted, Bauer himself jumped up and handled that task. And the user names that then showed up on the Welcome screen included "Steve" and "Ann."
Was this Bauer's own computer and projector, being used to host and promote the pro-bump sales pitch, at the very same time that Bauer was promoting himself as the "Healer of Hansville", who was not choosing sides and not "picking a winner and loser"?
I've emailed Bauer many times asking for an answer - because I think people would want to know this when evaluating his candor and credibility - but he has never responded. I discussed it with his lieutenant, Ann Blair, a couple of months ago, and nothing ever came of that, either. Why would Bauer be ashamed or afraid to answer the question honestly?
If anyone knows the answer to this, please post a comment and tell us the facts. Prize for the first correct answer is a Sandra LaCelle yard sign , or a bottle of wine - winner's choice!
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