Just last week the county stated the incorporation of Silverdale would threaten the Bucklin Hill Road bridge project, a major arterial averaging 20,000 vehicles per day.  This project has been on Kitsap County Public Works drawing board since 1989, four years after the mall opened.

In 1998, during the last incorporation campaign, the county floated a 70Õ bridge design with a projected cost of $10.5 million.  The Design and construction was shelved in 2000, coincidentally right after the incorporation vote.

Last September, twenty three years after the original planning was announced, once again in the middle of an incorporation campaign the county gave a presentation at a Community Council meeting at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Silverdale.

At that presentation Jon Brand, Assistant Director of Kitsap County Public Works, updated the community on their newest bridge plan, a 240Õ span at a projected cost of $16.6 million and Ònoted that the county is committed to the Bucklin Hill Bridge Project this time.

Now, five months later we are told the project will be halted again if Silverdale is incorporated.  If history is any indication, this project is doomed whether Silverdale incorporates or not.   We need to fix this with local control.  Now is the time.

Randy Biegenwald

Silverdale