Report on Recent Meetings - 4/17/08

We have been asked to provide timely reports of the meetings we announce in the Illahee Community Updates.

KCDEM Meeting (4/15/08) at the Norm Dicks Government Center

KCDEM is the abbreviation for the Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management. The meeting followed a nearly 3 hour Kitsap Transit board meeting. These meeting were high level meetings attended by the County Commissioners and the mayors, or their representatives, from cities within the county. The KCDEM meeting was also attended by Christine Rolfes and a representative from Derek Kilmer's office, and possibly others of importance who we were unaware of.

Phyllis Mann and her staff gave a detailed one hour presentation of their response to the December 3rd storm, which was impressive. At the end of presentation they gave an opportunity for state representatives and the public to comment. State Representative Christine Rolfes inquired about the culvert work on Illahee Road. Public comments were received from one of the Gilberton residents and from two of the Illahee residents in attendance. (Note that this was the first time that public comments were taken at this type of briefing.) To sum up their comments they were upset about the washout at Gilberton Creek and the filling up of the Illahee Creek culvert and wanted some answers as to why these failures occurred. The only press person we saw there was Paul Balcerak from the CK Reporter so there may be a report of the meeting later.

Illahee Community Planning Meeting (4/15/08) at the Sylvan Way Library
(This is an unofficial report of the meeting. The official report will be issued by the county.)

This was the 5th meeting in a series of 9 scheduled public process meetings to review the draft Illahee Community Plan prepared by the community. The meeting was to go over the "environmental elements if the Illahee Plan" followed by a Low Impact Development presentation. It was an interesting meeting in that not everyone's expectations were met. Some appreciated the environmental process overview provided by the county experts. Others were expecting them to cover specific items in the Illahee Plan. The Low Impact Development presentation was great, but some had hoped there would be more information on the storm water issues in Illahee. An important suggestion by one of the presenters was to make sure the community plan covers all the issues the community is concerned about as those items then must be considered when decisions are made by the county. At the end of the meeting Katrina Knutson suggested we consider a 3 hour meeting on April 28 to finish up the environmental issues along with completing the Chapter 3 zoning issues. We will need to wait on the county to see what their plans are for our next meeting.

Illahee Preserve Stewardship Meeting (4/16/08) at the Park's Dept Fairgrounds Office

Guests at this meeting were Chip Faver, Dori Leckner, and Martha Droge from the Park's Department. Martha is the newly hired Parks Planner who will be the lead person in charge of the new parking lot for the Illahee Preserve at Almira and Fuson. The group went over the parking lot design and the process needed to complete the work this year. Other issue of interest is the near completion of brochure verbiage to be given to the architectural firm of Rice, Fergus, Miller who are preparing the brochure which will include a trail map. There have been reports of brush pickers in the Preserve, which is an illegal activity. If you encounter any brush picking in the Preserve, please let the authorities and the Stewardship committee members know. Official minutes of the Stewardship Committee meetings are posted on the illaheecommunity.com website when they are approved.

We hope this brief report of these meetings is helpful.

Jim Aho