The city of Poulsbo faced a tough decision as to whether to improve the caretaker home at Frank Raab Park or eliminate the position and remove the building.

After a presentation from Public Works director Mike Lund, the city chose to keep the position and committed to making improvements to the home and ultimately purchasing a new home in the future.

Caretaker Sev Hoiness and his family recently purchased a home and will be moving out of the Raab Park property at the end of March, leaving the home and the responsibilities that go with it open.

The caretaker position has always been held by a city employee and is unpaid with work being done on their own time. In exchange for the care and security of the park, the employee could live there for free.

The work takes about 1,400 hours a year, making it about two-thirds of a full-time employee. The numbers go up in spring and summer as the park gets busier, and may go up even more with the handicapped-accessible playground going in at the park this summer.

The Parks & Recreation Department is already down a full-time employee due to COVID-19 and cannot absorb the workload as it is struggling to keep up with the maintenance of the city’s other 16 parks.

Not including salary and benefits, it would cost the city over $65,000 to replace the caretaker position with a full-time employee.

“Quite honestly I think the service level would go down at the park if we went this route,” Lund said.

The only costs to consider with bringing on a new caretaker would be the repair and ultimately the replacement of the caretaker house.

The house was placed at Raab Park between 1969 and 1981. Best estimates say 1971 due to the age of the 1,440-square-foot double-wide. The mobile home and the property it sits on was owned by Joe and Eva Gnos, the originally park caretakers, until 1986, when the home was purchased by the city at the request of former North Kitsap School District superintendent John Klein for a caretaker residence.

Those who live in the house make sure the park is clean, maintained and safe.

“Caretaker is not only about maintenance, but they’re also 24/7 security up there. It’s a large park, and its kind of out of the way, and you know things happen in some of those places where you don’t have somebody around in the evenings, so it’s very good to have security up there,” Lund said.

The nearly 51-year-old mobile home will need to be replaced eventually, which Lund estimates will cost about $140,000 (including removal costs). The current home has several leaks in the roof, causing mold in the ceiling and rotted flooring in the bathroom. If the city had chosen to keep the mobile home long term rather than purchase a new one, repairs would cost an estimated $25,000.

“I want to give a shout out to Sev and his family for putting up with these conditions,” Councilwoman Britt Livdahl said. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t reflect well on the city that they lived like that.”

Public Works staff recommended that $10,000 be set aside to make some minor repairs.

In the meantime Public Works is identifying possible candidates to take on the caretaker position.