The Kitsap County Boundary Review Board determined in its regularly scheduled meeting, Thursday night, October 9th, that the City of Port Orchard was entitled to invoke the Board’s jurisdiction regarding the SKIA North Annexation and that a public hearing would be required on the City of Bremerton’s annexation request. The Boundary Review Board scheduled a special meeting on the matter for October 23rd, 7 p.m. in the Commissioners Chambers at Kitsap County, 619 Division Street, Port Orchard and indicated that a hearing would be set for early December.

The City of Port Orchard had invoked the Boundary Review Board’s jurisdiction regarding the proposed City of Bremerton annexation and specifically related to the provision of sewer service to the SKIA urban growth area. An existing 2003 Inter-Local Agreement between the Port of Bremerton and the City of Port Orchard regarding sewer service to the SKIA Urban Growth Area has been under discussion throughout the annexation process.

While the Port of Bremerton included a provision requesting the City of Bremerton to honor the agreement in their Resolution in support of the annexation, continued requests by Port Orchard for the Bremerton City Council to acknowledge the agreement have been unsuccessful. In all efforts and in various meeting with Bremerton, the City of Port Orchard has supported the annexation of the SKIA urban growth area to the City of Bremerton, so long as the sewer service Inter-Local agreement was honored by Bremerton to offset the infrastructure and financial commitments already made by Port Orchard.