Efforts to turn Silverdale into a city have become the latest victim of the economy. While organizers have not given up on the idea of incorporation, their efforts to promote it have come to a near-standstill for now.
“I don’t feel — and some other people do not feel — that right now is a good time to start an incorporation effort in this climate,” said Randy Biegenwald, one of the key promoters of incorporation for many years. “When it will make sense to start an effort that we can see through the end, we will do it.”
It would take more than two years for a city to be created, including boundary determination and elections — so even if efforts were to start immediately, the city of Silverdale wouldn’t be born until close to the end of 2011. By then, the economy in theory should be well underway to healing, Biegenwald says, but that doesn’t change people’s perceptions currently.
In the meantime supporters are watching closely as Kitsap County does a feasibility study for the Silverdale UGA as part of a broader, countywide UGA assessment project. For Silverdale, the analysis will include costs of current infrastructure operation and maintenance and future capital improvements, as well as a cost-benefit analysis of incorporation.
Special Projects division officials, who are overseeing the UGA project, could not be reached for an update, but the county’s Web site says the UGA portion is expected to be completed this summer, with the incorporation report part due in spring 2010. Initially, the county estimated the second phase to be finished by the end of this year.
Biegenwald said people may not be aware that incorporating doesn’t mean city residents would receive better services, because there would be no reason to change if the current services are already good. “The problem is people in Silverdale don’t have any more say on how Central Kitsap is run than do people in Hansville or Port Orchard,” he said. “It’s about representation.”
If Silverdale were to incorporate, it is estimated to have a population of between 16,000 and 25,000, depending on the boundaries, which would make it either second- or third-biggest in the county. (Bainbridge Island’s population was around 23,000 in 2008 based on the state’s Office of Financial Management estimates.) And already, the city appears to be a desirable place: Money’s Best Places to Live recently ranked Silverdale as No. 92 nationwide for small towns. The ranking was based on indicators such as schools, crime rates, mortgage prices, job growth etc.
