Mayor Joe Deets is still talking about “sticker shock” when it comes to taking care of Bainbridge Island roads.
A few years ago, the city was paying $500,000 a year to maintain its roads. When city manager Blair King took over that spot, he said BI was really falling behind only spending that much, so the council increased it to $1 million a year. Now, the council is being told it really should be spending $2.5 million a year.
Deets said while he hopes the council decides on a path that will fund road projects at a sustainable level, he is concerned that costs will just keep going up like they have in recent years.
King has been telling the City Council that it is much cheaper to maintain roads now than to have to completely overhaul them later. He mentioned the huge Madison Avenue project as an example.
At the council meeting Oct. 8, a presentation showed the need for funding and various ways to obtain it. Car tab fees could increase $10 a year to bring in $200,000. A sales tax increase of .1% could be added, which would bring in up to $800,000 and then be equal to nearby Poulsbo’s. Some of that money could be used for Sustainable Transportation projects, it was noted.
Two other ideas that didn’t seem to have as much support among councilmembers were a street levy that would be voted on by property taxpayers and would bring in up to $3 million. A 20-year bond was another option.
Councilmember Clarence Moriwaki said a levy wasn’t the only real option as the car tab and sales tax increases would bring in $1 million, which when added to the $1 million already in the budget would almost be enough.
While most of the council realized something needed to be done, Councilmember Jon Quitslund said: “I’m far from excited about this. We have so many other priorities.”
He went on to say: “We’re not building community the way other things do. We’re trying to get a lot of things done at once. This would get in the way of some of the things that are very important to me.”
Councilmember Brenda Fantroy-Johnson said she’s not excited about it either. However, “We can see others weren’t excited about it either. They did nothing. And now we’re digging us out of the problem.” As for building community, “How else can you bring community together if you can’t travel? We have to keep our roads up to par.”
Because roads have been neglected for years, King said Madison probably isn’t the only one BI will have to reconstruct. But if the maintenance of roads improves, the city won’t have to rebuild so many in the future.
“We need a long-term preventative maintenance program,” King said, adding the city is buying equipment like a roller so it can do more of the work in the future, saving money.
Deputy mayor Ashley Mathews said: “Unfortunately we have to fix it. This issue will cost a lot more further down the road.”
Councilmember Kirsten Hytopoulos pointed out that raising the sales tax only will bring in so much money, and part of that is earmarked for the Sound To Olympics trail.
She and Councilmember Leslie Schneider said they want to find out what the community wants. “We need partnership with the community; more buy in,” Hytopoulos said.
If they decide to try a levy, Schneider said they have to “make the case” to the voters. She said it can’t just be about road pavement; it needs to include other transportation targets that are “important to voters.”
Hytopoulos added: “We need to educate the public more about how little we have to work with.”
