Kitsap's challenges are opportunities as 2023 approaches
As we prepare to enter 2023 Kitsap County and its four cities will be facing challenges and opportunities because of the continued growth of our community. Every indication is that our population will grow, new businesses will be started, our Naval bases will have new projects and will hire more people, and political and private leadership will be called on to make good decisions that will support this new growth while protecting the quality of life we all have come to love about living in Kitsap County.
It will be an exciting but very challenging new year for Kitsap County. Here are a few areas that will provide our biggest challenges and opportunities.
Affordable housing: In the past five years the cost of housing has almost doubled. A one-bedroom apartment that rented for $900 three years ago is now double that, almost unaffordable for anyone making less than $25 per hour. Where are our workers going to live? Three years ago one could purchase a home in Kitsap County for around $250,000, today that same home is $500,000 with interest rates at 6%. How will our young families be able to purchase their first home? Local governments and the housing developers must come up with a plan to be able to build more affordable housing and we haven’t even talked about our homeless population.
Transportation: Last year a local committee received state funding for planning for the future of the Gorst interchange to help solve Kitsap’s worst traffic challenge. The effort to find funding to build a new project must continue. Bremerton has been down to one ferry for over a year and our Washington State Ferries service has been sporadic and poorly managed. Our ferry service has to improve in 2023.
The future of Silverdale and Kitsap Mall: Silverdale is obviously an area where there will be a demand for more growth and the temptation will be to continue the urban sprawl and auto-centric personality of this community. The Kitsap Mall, which was the retail center of Kitsap County for the past 30 years, has fallen on hard times of late. It is now owned by the Jones Lang LaSalle Corporation out of Chicago. A new plan for the future of Silverdale and the Kitsap Mall presents a great opportunity for the center of our county. Should Silverdale become the county's fifth city?
Health care: In the past few months we have read about or experienced the challenges faced by St. Michael Medical Center. The overflow and lack of nursing for the emergency center has been well documented in the Kitsap Sun. Conversations around taking to the voters the opportunity for a new tax financed health care system have emerged because of the challenges experienced at the new hospital. Progress must be made to improve our health care and emergency services in 2023.
Retaining local journalism: Local newspapers all across the country are closing, and this is a terrible thing for any community, let alone our democracy. We know the Seattle Times is not going to cover the news in Kitsap County, and we know the Seattle TV stations rarely have a story about anything going on in Kitsap County. Without our local newspaper, who will hold our elected officials accountable for their decision making? Who will honor and recognize the great work being done by our non-profits and our neighbors? Who will cover our high school sports teams, and who will cover and write about our biggest employer, the U.S. Navy? The Kitsap Sun has been a part of our lives for a very long time and it would be awful for our community if they were to have to close the doors. We all need to support and value our local newspaper.
Leadership: Never in our history will there be a greater need for smart and courageous leadership from our elected and private leaders. To assure and protect our quality-of-life vision during this period of growth change will be required. Leaders will be asked to have a vision of where we need to go and have the ability to ask people to help implement that vision. We must have leaders who have the discipline and the passion to create the change that will be needed to assure our quality of life in Kitsap County.
We can do this!
Cary Bozeman is a Port of Bremerton commissioner and former mayor of Bremerton.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Your turn: Kitsap's challenges are opportunities as 2023 approaches
