Who Is Responsible for this Bumpy Mess? A Former Commissioner with Relatives on Twin Spits Road? A Handful of "Citizen" Committee Members Who Now Have "Bump-Front" Property? We're Looking... Help Us Search
It's not easy to pinpoint how this whole mess got started because our Kitsap County Commissioners haven't been responding to our emails. We've asked for names and contact information of the road safety committee members again and again and again, but we've received no responses. None! So we've done our best good faith effort to find out for you by hobbling together e-mails and committee agendas and linking them up with phone directories and county tax records (since we know the majority of the committee members live at the bump sites). Please contact us if any of the information below is incorrect or if you have additional information about committee members that we can add.
The citizens committee that pushed these speed bumps through the Kitsap County Commission back in June should be held accountable for their actions. More so, the Kitsap County Commission should be held accountable, too. If you agree with what they did, you should contact them and give them a pat on the back! If you disagree, and feel that the speed bumps were the wrong course of action on roads that provide the only access to residential neighborhoods in North Kitsap County, you should contact them and let them know how you feel and demand that they now urge the county to reverse this mess. They are volunteering their time on your behalf to demand safe roads of Kitsap County government. We, at Beep4Bumps, feel that they failed by insisting on speed bumps rather than advocating better, wider, safer roads with proper lighting, sidewalks where necessary, and bike paths to accommodate the cyclists among us. We also urge you to become involved and join their group so that we can have road safety solutions that benefit everyone in North Kitsap County, not just a select few.
Aside from the folks below, we urge you to contact Sheriff Steven Boyer and Kitsap County Commissioners Steve Bauer, Jan Angel, and Josh Brown. You can find them all at http://www.kitsapgov.com.
We'll be providing more information related to the Sheriff's Dept. in up coming posts.
Here's what we have been able to find so far regarding road advisory committee membership...
If you do some "Google" searches you can find a few things out by typing in Greater Hansville Traffic Safety Advisory Committee or variations and combinations of those key words. We found some meeting minutes that mentioned that they were busy doing some studies and such. But good luck on finding the actual studies. We found none. And they haven't coughed any up yet, either.
We wanted to know, for example, if they studied ALL of the roads in the Hansville area, not just the ones where they wanted speed bumps. I bet you want to know that, too. Let us know if you find out.
We also want to know some pretty simple stuff. How many traffic deaths, injuries, and accidents involving property damage happened at those now bumpy spots? Got any ideas? We don't. We'd like to know. That's deaths, injuries, and property damage; the typical stuff studied when making traffic changes. It seems only logical to compare those death, injury, and property damage rates with other parts of the county, right?
Committee Member Steve Minor says the county told him that some folks drive 70 miles per hour on Hood Canal Drive. OK. Maybe. We haven't seen that study. If it's true, we absolutely don't condone it. But I guess logic would have it that those dog-gone speeders don't drive 70 miles per hour in front of anyone else's home in the greater Hansville area but his. Oh wait, maybe that's a different Steve Minor at 34887 Hood Canal Dr.
Have a look at our Public Records page. We'll update it as we can.
On a blog at the Kitsap Sun that you can get to by clicking here, the county OKed a $35,000 project to put 10 speed tables on Hood Canal and Bridge View drives and Twin Spits Road and Hansville roads. The money came out of an account to increase safety for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Former County Commissioner Chris Endresen managed to have the county vote on the speed bumps before she left to join US Sen. Maria Cantwell's staff. We hope Endresen exhibits better public accountability while working for Cantwell. We're not very optimistic, however. A quick check shows that Endresen accepted $500.00 in campaign money from someone named Endresen living on Twin Spits Road. Is this speed bump thing a family affair? One might follow the bumps to connect the dots. Were laws broken? Hard to say. But from an ethics standpoint, this sure doesn't smell so good.
