CKCC to revive task force

The CKCC is meeting tonight to create a new task force to examine two hot-button topics: the planned new library, and the Community Campus.

The CKCC will meet Wednesday, March 12, 6:30 p.m. in the Cove Room (second floor) at the Red Lion Silverdale Hotel (formerly Westcoast) on Bucklin Hill Drive, said Central Kitsap Community Councilman Hank Mann-Sykes.

“At this meeting we will form the new ad hoc committee (task force),” said Mann-Sykes. The task force will be formed from a list of suggested names of interested individuals in the community and on the CKCC.

CKCC members have been careful to point out this will not be the same task force as before, which had plans to place the new library and Community Campus (or new downtown) in Old Town Silverdale.

He added that Kitsap County “Commissioner Patty Lent has secured a bus from Kitsap Transit for us to use for our field trip to Kirkland’s Peter Kirk Park or to the Jim Parsley Center in Vancouver, Wash.”

These areas are considered successful examples of community campuses. Possible dates for the trip include: March 28, April 4 and 11, all Fridays. Those wanting to ride along should contact Mann-Sykes via e-mail: hanks@bigplanet.com, or Mary Earl at Grape Expectations Wine Shop, 3594 N.W. Byron, Suite 102, Silverdale, (360) 698-0522.

“We will be concentrating on taking as many individuals as we can,” said Mann-Sykes, “from the groups that will occupy activities on the Campus and those serving on the (CKCC). Others can accompany us in their own cars.”

The previous task force was disbanded after the CKCC finished its examination of county “sub-area” plans for Silverdale’s future, dubbed “Visioning 2052.” The task force was also disbanded after Old Town business owners and residents showed up at a meeting of CKCC committee heads and protested loudly that they had not been consulted on plans for Old Town’s make-over.

The library expansion idea was separate from the Community Campus idea — except that the new library would have been placed at the heart of the campus. Voter distaste of raising taxes in recent elections caused library officials to back away from a proposed library bond.

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