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?
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GHAAC wasn't really in on this one. The road was studied back 01 or 02 (can't recall) and it was noted then that the road was contrary to county and state requirements (primarily that the curve was too sharp and visibility over the hills was so bad that they were both accidents waiting to happen. GHAAC didn't get recognized until 2007 and was only a loose group of citizens in 2004 - they didn't exist at all in 2001 or 02.
The road project in Hansville was actually proposed to be done in 2006, but the county lacked funding - so I guess they're running about a year and a half behind.
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