The consultants are coming, and while we welcome their expertise, there is something they can do for us.

An inevitable by-product of economic growth and building-land development are the consultants. They come to Kitsap, paid and unpaid, seeking to find out what’s going on here, and many are unabashedly open about asking dumb questions.

We had the opportunity to sit at dinner the other night with yet another consultant seeking to understand downtown Bremerton better so he could go off and tell his investor friends what he found.

No one begrudged his asking, and we did buy him a nice dinner, but it was obvious after the first few minutes that this was to be another session of “We’ll tell you everything we know, and you will take notes (or worse, not take any notes at all) and well shake hands and wish you luck and you will profusely (or not) thank us for our time and the dinner.”

After dinner, and before we dropped this consultant off at his car parked downtown, we took a brief tour through the downtown corridor.

It was distressing to find on this tour that our consultant visitor had taken no time to do any research on his own. When we pointed out Evergreen Park as a new downtown asset, he seemed surprised it was there. When we pointed out houses that had been modernized, or need to be fixed, he nodded, but offered no point of view, advice, or empathy.

To save us the time of educating future consultants, here are a few suggestions.
First, spend no time with any consultant who has not done his homework.

And that leads to: 10 Questions To Ask Any Consultant before they get any of our time, or free advice.

1) Have they “driven” the county? Do they know where Hansville is, been to Seabeck, Olalla, walked the downtown business districts of our five incorporated cities? Do they understand Bainbridge Island is in Kitsap County?

2) Have they been to the Kitsap Regional Economic Development Council to get a visitor information packet? Have they visited the KREDC Web site?

3) Have they been to our local libraries, walked the Olympic College campus, seen the County seat, the Port of Bremerton?

4) Do they know where the hospital is? Been to any board of education meetings? Do they know where West Park and East Park are?

5) Have they read the local newspapers? Better, have they subscribed to them? Are they informed?

6) Have they read the latest Trends report from Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority? (kccha.com/Trends.html)

7) Have they visited our local museums, gone on a gallery walk, been to the Admiral Theater?

8) Do they take notes when you talk with them?

9) If they are focused on downtown Bremerton, have they thoroughly driven the city and walked the streets downtown? Did they go to the Turner Joy, drive through Manette?

10) Do they give anything back when you talk with them or is this a one-way exchange where we tell them all they know, they write reports (which we never see) and then they come and build projects and displace the people who have held the city together for the past fifty years?

   I’m all for consultants (after all, I am one), but when I’m hired to fact-find, I try to do my homework, learn as much as I can, take notes, write thank you cards and keep people informed.

The experts, consultant and developers who are coming to “find out” what’s going on in Kitsap are certainly welcome, but before you spend too much time, buy any dinners or spend your evening talking yourself hoarse on the merits and opportunities here, ask them to do their homework.

They’ll be better consultants for it.

(Editor’s Note: Bill Hoke is the owner of Hoke Consulting in Poulsbo. Reach him at whoke@grafhoke.com).