Bainbridge to move ahead with police department-municipal court facility — again

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND – The city will once again move ahead with retrofitting the former Harrison Medical Center clinic off Madison Avenue into a home for its police department and municipal court.

Members of Bainbridge Island’s City Council voted 6-0 on Tuesday night in favor of proceeding with soliciting construction bids while directing that the city simultaneously have a racial equity review conducted in looking at the development of the facility.

City Manager Blair King said he envisioned moving ahead with the project while involving the city’s Race Equity Advisory Committee to review elements of the project and said the city would shoot for the goal of occupying the facility in the third quarter of 2023. City staff estimated the cost of the project at 8804 Madison Avenue would be $20.4 million.

The city has been working toward replacing its police station on Winslow Way and its municipal court in Rolling Bay for years. In 2020, the city bought the former clinic site off Madison Avenue for about $9 million as the future site of its police-municipal court facility, and city staff had been moving ahead with plans for the building. The city was on the verge of advertising the project for construction bidding, but those plans were paused in April 2021 as some questioned the project and as King was brought on as Bainbridge Island’s new city manager.

More: Bainbridge approves $9 million purchase of Harrison building for police-court building

“This has been a building that's been coming for 20-something years, and it will not stop the conversations about programming and policing,” said council member Kirsten Hytopoulos. “We've got these two things to do, and they are distinct. We do owe it to these people that we want to treat us respectfully and be open to change and conversations, we need to treat them respectfully as well. They're not even in a safe building at this point, and not in a healthy building.”

During the council meeting Tuesday night, members of the Kitsap Equity Race and Community Engagement Coalition read from a statement critiquing the project, criticizing the size of the facility and asking for an outside assessment of the work with racial equity considerations in mind. They asked for a pause in plans for the project.

“Kitsap ERACE Coalition comes to you united in our belief that the current proposed plan for a police-court facility is not equitable, and that the process of arriving at the plan has not incorporated meaningful work toward dismantling systemic and structural racism,” islander Marsha Cutting said. “We ask that, rather than push forward out of the fear of possibly losing money, you pause and reexamine what kind of community you want to have.”

Councilmember Clarence Moriwaki pointed to the decision that the council made in 2019 to purchase the Madison Avenue site: “We have done it. This was the decision that was made, up or down, disagree or agree. I think our community spoke very loudly in this last election that we have to move forward on this issue. It’s time.”

Councilmember Leslie Schneider said it was time to move ahead with the project, saying that she was comfortable with the Madison Avenue site as a “very good option.”

“The decision about providing our facility for the police and the court is separate from the policing that we do,” she said. “We have to provide a good home for our policing, which includes how we interact with the public.”

Councilmember Brenda Fantroy-Johnson pushed to include the racial equity analysis and eventually made the motion that the council adopted, to move ahead with advertising the project for construction while including a race equity analysis.

“I'm not trying to stop anything, neither is Kitsap ERACE," she said. "What they’re asking you to do, as their elected officials, is to apply a lens to this and to look at what is really needed. Not to say that, ‘Oh, we need this. We've been waiting.’ That smacks of white privilege.”

Earlier in the meeting, council members voted to move ahead with hiring an appraiser to review the city’s purchase of the 8804 Madison Avenue clinic site. The council authorized spending up to $30,000, though city staff expected the actual cost of the work to be lower.

King said the appraiser would be tasked with reviewing the appraisal process and asking if best practices were followed.

“Were the assumptions correct, could something have been done differently, are there lessons to be learned – would be helpful for the council, again with an understanding that this is not an exercise in an effort to recoup any costs,” he said. “That has already happened, the land has been purchased. But it's an opportunity to obtain some information and perhaps provide some answers. On the other hand, it could also bring some more questions.”

Nathan Pilling is a reporter covering Bainbridge Island, North Kitsap and Washington State Ferries for the Kitsap Sun. He can be reached at 360-792-5242, nathan.pilling@kitsapsun.com or on Twitter at @KSNatePilling.

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This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Bainbridge to move ahead with police-court facility — again