SMP & Rain Garden Progress - 6/24/10

Illahee Shoreline. The Illahee Community has over 3 miles of salt water shoreline with many waterfront residents and with our easterly sloping topography many others with views of Puget Sound. These and other Illahee residents are assumed to be concerned about the future of the Sound. Kitsap County is updating and revising their Shoreline Master Program and is soliciting input, currently on the "Kitsap County Shoreline Inventory and Characterization (which is a large document of over 400 pages with the majority being maps) and available for viewing at the County's website.

Shoreline Master Program (SMP). There have been a number of different articles on the SMP process that is going on in Kitsap County with the following article describing it in further detail: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/feb/27/shoreline-planning-under-way-in-kitsap/ Official information on the Shoreline Master Program (SMP) is available on the Kitsap County website: http://www.kitsapshoreline.org/index.html

SMP Task Force. A 20 member Task Force was selected to come up with recommendations for the County Commissioners, with their meetings being periodically reported in the Kitsap Sun. The link to the first meeting is noted below, followed by the link to a later meeting: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/apr/23/work-shoreline-task-force-gets-under-way/ and http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/jun/04/kitsap-county-shorelines-discussion-comes-under/

SMP Representatives. Representatives were chosen to represent groups such as the Homebuilders and KAPO, and then it appears they were looking for representation geographically. We know a number of Illahee residents volunteered, with myself appearing to be the one selected to represent this general area.

Illahee Citizen Input? If you have input you would like me to bring to the Task Force deliberations, I will be glad to pass it on. So far we have mostly been receiving reports and data and just began formulating some goals. I will try to keep you posted on the SMP Task Force progress.

Rain Garden Progress. It was touch and go Wednesday as to whether we could weed and mulch rain garden Plot #3 with only 4 volunteers before it got dark. You can see from the first photo that the plot was full of weeds (we had been asked to do a before and after shots by those who helped on Tuesday). We started at 4:30 pm and finished at 8:30 pm with enough light to document the finished product and need to thank, from left to right in the last attached photo, Pat Graves, Don Jahaske, and Brett Aho, for all their work and for sticking it out until it was complete.

Two More Plots To Mulch. We have the two end plots yet to spread mulch on, which should be easy as we will spread the mulch over the existing wood chips. In other words those plots have already been weeded so all we need to do is get some wheel borrows and operators along with some with rakes to spread the mulch. The goal is to put it on thick so we don't have to pull another weed.

Best Time To Help? We scheduled the Tuesday and Wednesday work parties based on input from those who suggested weekday evenings were best for them. If anyone would like to help with this final mulching effort, please let us know what day and time works best for you.

Jim Aho