The deficiencies listed on the Reporter’s February 28 editorial, entitled “Pacific Avenue’s plague” can only be attributed to a lack of competent inspection and supervision of construction. The reported improper drainage also suggests the lack of drainage planning and design which are integral components of roadway design.

Sound project planning requires the ability to foresee all possibilities to be encountered in the course of implementing a project to minimize, if not eliminate, unforeseen cost overruns.

In this regard, a news articles on the Jan. 24 issue of the Kitsap Sun, entitled “Pacific Avenue work surpasses budget” reports on an unforeseen cost overrun in the amount of $350,000, or roughly 10 percent of the appropriated project’s funding in the removal of the soil to be replaced by a type that meets design requirements — namely, load bearing capacity and ease in draining.

The poor soil was only discovered during construction when excavation work for sewer lines were underway.

This could have been averted with a cost of a small fraction of this unforeseen cost overrun had the services of a geo-tech consultant been engaged to conduct log boring tests to determine the soil types, required thicknesses and others as base course and sub-base materials as basis for estimating the cost of earthwork as an item of the project’s cost and not as an unforeseen item.

The Central Kitsap Reporter is to be commended for informing the public how judicious the government is in expending taxpayers’ money.

As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “The foundation of a strong democracy is an informed public.”

Noel C. Sim, PE

Retired City Engineer

Bremerton