The Bainbridge Island City Council will look at changes to its 2025-26 budget at its meeting Oct. 22 at City Hall and on Zoom at 6 p.m.
The council will look at seven items that were mentioned at the last meeting. It will discuss:
—spending $100,000 from the Transportation Benefit Fund for smaller Sustainable Transportation Projects.
—funding economic development. A Wayfinding Sign Program could use $600,000 from the Lodging Tax. Retail recruitment or hotel assessment would cost $60,000 from the General Fund. A Community Art Plan would have an unknown General Fund impact.
—a 5% reduction in the council Contingency Fund for both years. The budget now is $190,000 per year.
— cutting contributions to the Kitsap Economic Development Agency $10,000 in 2026.
—adding another City Connects at a cost of $18,000 a year.
—reducing equipment replacement by $20,000 in 2026.
—giving $60,000 to the Suyematsu Farm Legacy Alliance for upgrades.
A public hearing is set for Nov. 12 on the changes.
In regular business, the council will look at two topics delayed due to the length of a previous meeting:
The council will look at a wastewater treatment agreement with Kitsap County Sewer District 7, including 25 additional sewer connections on south BI, and start the process to purchase and connect five requests. There’s no cost to the city as connections will be paid for by property owners. The slide show says the current agreement is for 480 connections. About 350 are connected and the rest reserved. The city has asked for more capacity. The connections are for buildings that have failing septic systems or are near sensitive bodies of water.
The other delayed issue is signage. It addresses the proliferation of sandwich-board-type signs on Winslow Way. It would limit the number to three within two miles of the business, and they would not be allowed on public right of way. In researching the topic city staff found that other towns visited by tourists have stricter laws than the one BI is trying to pass. Staff met with the downtown association, chamber and others before coming up with the draft law.
The council will look at a staff recommendation on where to build a bicycle corral . It had been proposed for 256 Winslow Way. After getting feedback from business owners and the chamber, it was decided a better location would be at 100 Winslow Way as it would take up only one parking space instead of three. The existing motorcycle parking would be removed. A mural for the road surface at the corral was selected via a vote of about 500 people taking a survey. Receiving 75% of the first-place votes was “Bainbridge Mosaic” by Gwendolyn Wood of Seattle.
Also at the meeting, city manager Blair King will present an ongoing discussion with Hyla School for an easement, preferably an off-road path. The memo says the south side of this corridor would allow a physically separated single or bi-directional path up to 12-feet wide.
The only proclamation is to note Veterans Day Nov. 11.
.
